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WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 




Arthur Llewellyn Griffiths 



WILD 
SCOTTISH CLANS 

AND 

BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE 

BY 
Arthur Llewellyn Griffiths 

Author of 
" Wild Days in the Philippines " 




THE C. M. CLAllk PUBLISHING CO. 
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



f 



'^ A 



Copyright. 1910 

Turn C. M. Clark Publishino Oo. 

Boston, Mass.. U. S. A. 



CCU2S0701 



FOREWORD 

Far up in the frozen north, across the 
heaving Atlantic from ice-bound Labrador, 
subject to the long Arctic twilight and 
lighted by the rays of the polar star, sit the 
giant, heather-clad mountains of the Lion 
of the North. Around their never-changing 
buttresses mists gather, storms break and 
snows beat, and out of those mists, storms and 
snows, has come a race of people to whom 
the civilized world owes much. 

In all Europe, in fact in all the world, 
there is no more extraordinary anthropologi- 
cal spectacle than that presented by the 
Gaels of Scotland who preserve, to the 
the present time, the manners and customs of 
their ancestors from ages the most remote, 
and use a language once the most widely 
diffused and now the oldest extant. Among 
all the peculiarities of times past which they 
preserve there is none more picturesque than 
that of the Highland costume, now also the 
oldest garb in use. 



So ancient is its origin that its beginning 
is lost in the mists of antiquity, yet the High- 
landers cling to it with a tenacity which 
speaks well for its existence when the Great 
Trump sounds forth and time shall be no 
more. Oriental in its flowing characters it 
is worn by men with far more than Oriental 
bravery. 

In the Crimean War the Russians said, 
" The English were bad enough but their 
wives were devils"; and Napoleon, after 
Waterloo, declared, ** If they had only kept 

those women devils at home I could 

have won the battle.** 

So, it is with a feeling of pardonable 
pride because of my Scottish blood that I 
take up my pen to indite " Wild Scottish 
Clans,** a book which will partly show from 
what scenes Scotia*s sons derive their hardi- 
hood. It is also with the just hope of its 
being acceptable wherever honor, truth, 
steadfastness, devotion and bravery are 
revered that the author affixes his name. 
Arthur Llewellyn Griffiths. 
(A Macgregor). 

Portland, Mabc, Jnaa I, 1910. 



Dedicated TO 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Page 

Arthur Llewellyn Griffiths . . Frontispiece [^ 

The Battle of Bannockburn . . . 16 >^ 

The Stampede 48^ 

Bonnie Prince Charlie 76 U^ 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

A3 the spark of life was slowly dimin- 
ishing in the immortal Minstrel of the Border, 
those who stood beside the bed of his dis- 
solution at Abbotsford, saw his lips move. 
Bending low to catch the voice's last utter- 
ance they heard the words of one of his 
own songs of longing for the heather and 
bonnie Prince Charlie. 

Alan Stewart, Scottish hero of Steven- 
son's ** Kidnapped," said of his father, 
** He left me my breeks to cover me and 
little besides. And that was how I came 
to enlist, which was a black spot upon my 
character at the best of times, and would 
still be a sore job for me if I fell among the 
redcoats." 

** What," cried David Balfour, ** were 
you in the English army? " 

** That was I," replied Alan, ** but I 
deserted to the right side at Prestonpans — 
and that's some comfort." 



2 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

" Dear, dearl " exclaimed Balfour, 
*• The punishment is death." 

** Ay,*' returned Alan, " if they got 
hands on me it would be a short shrift and a 
lang tow for Alanl But I have the King of 
France's commission in my pocket, which 
would aye be some protection." 

" I misdoubt it much," I spoke up. 

" I have doubts mysel'," said Alan, 
drily. 

" And, good heaven, man! " cried I, 
" you that are a condemned rebel and a 
deserter, and a man of the French king's — 
what tempts ye back into this country? It's 
a braving of Providence." 

" Tut! " answered Alan, " I have been 
back every year since * The '45 * " — mean- 
ing the year of Culloden. 

** And what brings ye, man? " I asked. 

" Well, ye see, I weary for my friends 
and country," he admitted. ** France is a 
braw place, nae doubt — but I weary for 
the heather and the deer." 

Such love for and devotion to Scotland 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 3 

permeate the high and the lowly. A 
Scottish lassie came to this country to earn 
money to support her aged parents. Home- 
sickness depleted her health. Consumption 
seized her in its fell grasp. Friends of her 
staunch character gathered around her bed- 
side. She had but one wish when she 
finally knew that she must pass beyond. 

** Oh, if I could but see the bonnie hills 
o* Scotland before I die! ** she often sighed. 
Her friends collected money to send her 
home. On the homeward voyage it became 
apparent that she could not live to see the 
** bonnie hills o' Scotland." 

One evening, just as the sun was setting, 
they took her on deck to show her the day's 
dying glory. She gazed at it, enraptured, 
and then sank back with a sigh, saying, 
**Oh, but it's not sae fine as the bonnie hills 
o' Scotland.** 

There was a pause in which the on- 
lookers stood reverently by. Then the 
dying girl suddenly lifted herself on her 
elbow and exclaimed, excitedly, '* Oh, I see 



4 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

them nool** — then a look of surprise over- 
spread her features, an expression of ecstasy 
came — ** but I didna ken it was the hills o* 
Scotland where the horsemen and the 
chariots were! ** and she passed into that 
Land of Glory, the hills of which she had 
seen and had hardly differentiated from ** the 
bonnie hills o* Scodand.'* 

Lord Byron, George Gordon by name, 
himself of Scottish family, has immortalized 
his heart yearnings for his father's land by 
the passionate lines of Lochnagar addressed 
to one of the very grandest of the northern 
mountains around the beetling crags of which 
the eagle, king of birds, soars. 

"Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses. 
In you let the minions of luxury rove; 
Restore me the rocks where the snowflake reposes. 
If still they are sacred to freedom and love. 
Yet Caledonia, dear are thy mountains. 
Round their white summits tho' elements war, 
Tho' cataracts foam 'stead of smooth flowing foun- 
tains, 
I sigh for the valley of dark Lochnagar. 

"Ah, there my young footsteps in infancy wandered. 
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; 
On chieftains departed my memory ponder^, 
As daily I stray^ thro* the pme-covered glade. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 5 

I sought not my home till the day's dying glory 
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star. 
For fancy was cheered by traditional story. 
Disclosed by the natives of dark Lochnagar. 

"Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices 
Rise on the night rolling breath of the gale? 
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices. 
And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale. 
Round Lochnagar, while the stormy mist gathers. 
Winter presides in his cold, icy car; 
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers; 
They dwell 'mid the tempests of dark Lochnagar. 

" Years have rolled on, Lochnagar, since I left you. 
Years must elapse ere I see you again; 
Though nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you. 
Yet still thou art dearer than Albion's plain. 
Ejigland, thy beauties are tame and domestic 
To one who has roved on the mountains afar; 
OhI for the crags that are wild and majestic. 
The steep, frowning glories of dark Lochnagar.** 

Across the sea I look and see in a vision 
that bonnie land where day is long, the lark 
sings the song of freedom up the glen, the 
rays of the cold polar star guard by night, 
where 

'* The heath waves wild upon her hills, 
And foaming frae the fells. 
Her fountains sing o' freedom still, 
Aa they dance down tkt delk 



6 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

And weel I Io*e the land, my lads, 
TTiat's girded by the sea; 
Then Scotland's vales, and Scotland's dales 
And Scodand's hills for mel 

*' The thistle wags upon the fields 

Where Wallace bore his blade 

That gave her foeman's dearest bluid 

To dye her auld grey plaid; 

And, looking to the lift, my lads, 

I sing this doughty glee: 

Aula Scotland's right, and Scodand's might. 

And Scodand's hills for me! 

" They tell o* lands with brighter skies 

Where freedom's voice ne'er rang: 

Gie me the hills where Ossian dwelt. 

And Coila's minstrel sangi 

For I've nae skill o' lands, my lads, 

That ken na to be free! 

Then Scodand's right, and Scotland's might. 

And Scodand's hills for me! " 

**I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, 
from whence cometh my help," sang the 
inspired Psalmist, and from the hills come 
the greatest fighting men of the world, for 
freedom is bred in their very bones. The 
auld grey plaid of Scotland has been stained 
red scores of times when her braw High- 
landers have come down from their moun- 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 7 

tain fastnesses to revel in the blood of her 
enemies. Scotland stands today the only un- 
conquered land in the world and the clay- 
more the only unconquered sword on earth. 
The Highlands of Scotland stopped the 
world-conquering Romans* northward ad- 
vance, and the wild men of the glens and 
hills would have exterminated Caesar's le- 
gions had they not hastily constructed a great 
earthen defence, traces of which can be seen 
to this day. 

When feudalism rode on the neck of all 
Europe in the Dark Ages, it made no en- 
croachments on the mountains of Scotland 
and alone in those savage glens was the 
lamp of freedom kept from total extinction. 

Though Wallace, like the Saviour, 
was betrayed for a price and his body 
dismembered and scattered to the four corners 
of the kingdom — his soul is marching on. 
Like the Saviour, Wallace died of a broken 
heart, for when the noose was just to be 
placed around his neck by his would-be 
murderers, God instandy removed him from 



a WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

mortality. Even so the Victim of the cross, 
weighed down by the sins of an ungrateful 
world, gave up the ghost under the weight. 

Directly to the south of Stirling Casde, 
most sacred in Scottish history, is Scotland's 
most glorious field of Bannockburn. Toward 
the close of the year 1313, Stirling Casde 
was closely besieged by Robert Bruce who 
made a bargain with its governor that if not 
relieved by St. John's Day — June 24th of 
the following year — it should be surren- 
dered to the Scots. 

This was the last hold of England on 
the sacred soil of Scodand after the libera- 
tion brought about by Wallace. Therefore 
England aroused herself to a supreme effort; 
every resource was strained to the utmost, 
and a mighty host — a hundred thousand 
is the number given — led by Edward II 
in person, poured through the Border Coun- 
try and in June, 1314, encamped to the 
north of Torwood. Robert Bruce had in 
the meantime been actively preparing his 
defences, and after some preliminary skir- 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 9 

mishing and feats of arms the battle so 
memorable for Scotland was fought on St. 
John's Day, the English advancing con- 
fidently to the attack at daybreak. 

" At Baimockbum the English lay. 
The Scots they were not far away. 
But waited for the breaking day 
That glinted in the east. 
At last the sun broke through the heath 
And lighted up that field of death, 
When Bruce, with soul-inspiring breath. 
His heroes thus addressed: 

" ' Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bledl 
Scots wham Bruce has aften led! 
Welcome to your gory bed. 
Or to victory! 

Now's the day and now's the hour. 
See the front of battle lower, 
See approach proud Edward's power: 
Chains and slavery! 

*' * Wha sae base as be a slave: 
Wha would fill a coward's grave: 
Wha would be a traitor knave: 
Let him turn and flee! 
Wha for Scotland's king and law. 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw. 
Freeman stand or freeman fa*, 
Let him on wi' mel 



10 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

" * By oppression's woes and pains. 
By our sons in servile chains, 
We will drain our dearest veins. 
But they shall be free! 
Lay the proud usurpers low 
Tyrants fall in every foe. 
Liberty's in every blow: 
Let us do or dee! 

The numbers of the Scottish army did 
not exceed thirty thousand men but, accord- 
ing to a tradition, the sacred corpse of Wallace 
was there. Bruce led the reserve and all 
determined to make this division the stay 
of their little army or the last sacrifice for 
Scottish liberty and its martyred Wallace's 
corpse. There stood the sable hearse of 
Wallace. ** By that heaven-sent palladium 
of our freedom," cried Bruce, pointing to the 
hearse, ** we must this day stand or fall. He 
who deserts it murders William Wallace 
anew! *' 

The Abbot of Inchaflray passed along 
in front of the Scots, barefoot and with the 
crucifix in his hand, imploring the favor of 
heaven on the cause of freedom, and exhort- 
ing the Scots to fight for their rights, their 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 1 1 

king and the corpse of William Wallace. 
The Scots fell on their knees to confirm their 
resolution with a vow. 

The sudden humiliation of their posture 
incited an instant triumph in the mind of 
Edward; and, spurring forward, he shouted 
aloud, ** They yield! They cry for mercy! " 

** They cry for mercy," returned Lord 
Percy, ** but not from us. On that ground on 
which they kneel they will be victorious or 
find their graves! ** 

Proud Edward had yet to learn that 

** No stride was ever bolder 

Than his who showed the naked leg 

Beneath the plaided shoulder." 

The batde was commenced by rapid 
discharges of the terrible clothyard arrows 
by the English archers. So great was the 
number discharged that they darkened the 
air. Their accuracy and destructive power 
were formidable. Bruce ordered the Scottish 
horse to charge the Southron archers and 
the latter were swept from the field. The 
English horse returned the charge and. 



12 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Ignorant of the nature of the ground wisely 
chosen by the Scots, stumbled and sank to 
their deaths in the morass. 

The spectacle from the Borestane where 
King Robert stood was most awful. Among 
the fighting thousands on the plain could 
be made out here and there the figure of 
some well-known Scottish leader driving 
a spattered battleaxe through iron and bone 
and brain at every blow. 

Above the thunderous crash of steel 
on steel, the shrieks of agony and torture, 
and the yells of vengeance, there rose from 
time to time the battle cries of the great 
Scottish clans. 

Column after column of Edward's 
forces came on — to crash, break and dis- 
appear beneath the long Scottish lances and 
sweeping Lochaber hills. 

Before the onslaught of those wild sons 
of freedom the hireling host fell in heaps; 
they wavered as the heaps of dead rose ever 
higher before them, and the Scottish soldiers, 
perceiving the hesitation, cried, **On themi 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 13 

On them! They fail! ** The wild yells 
of the savage Scots terrorized them and there 
ensued one of those inexplicable scenes of 
panic and terror when a vastly superior 
force of trained men breaks and flees, as 
though life at all costs were the one thing to 
be considered. 

Edward II with five hundred soldiers — 
all that was left of that great host — fled 
from the field and got refuge at Dunbar, 
the scene of the unfortunate battle which 
had temporarily given England the su- 
premacy. From Dunbar he went by boat 
to Berwick. He looked upon his personal 
escape as miraculous and vowed he would 
build a house for poor Carmelites. This 
vow he fulfilled by founding Oriel College, 
Oxford, which thus remains today a monu- 
ment to Bannockburn and the emancipa- 
tion of Scodand. 

Thereafter the victorious warpipes could 
be heard wildly skirling in many a savage 
glen, ** The Cock o* the North,** to cheer 
the Scottish soldier on many a hard- 



14 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

fought field. Bruce won a crown, welded 
a heterogeneous people into one, and exacted 
a treaty from Edward II insuring what he 
had won. 

The passions of the Gaelic feudalism 
of those times could not be restrained from 
atrocious acts even in moments of common 
misfortune. On the fatal field of Flodden 
it is related of a Highlander of the Clan 
Mackenzie that he heard those near him 
exclaiming, " Alas, Laird, thou hast falleni** 

** What laird? ** shouted the Mackenzie. 

In the answer, ** The Laird of Buch- 
anan I ** he heard a name with which 
his clan had a feud of blood. Then and 
there the ** Faithful Highlander," as he is 
called by the sympathetic historian, sought 
out the fallen laird, found that he was only 
wounded, and butchered him. 

Clan Mackenzie suffered severely in a 
long-standing feud with the Macleods of 
Skye when both clans were reduced to the 
verge of ruin and lived on horses, dogs and 
cats, as they had no time or men to provide 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 15 

better food. Clan Mackenzie on one fatal 
morning packed the Kirk of Gilchrist for 
worship. It was in 1603, the year of the 
accession of James VI of Scotland to the 
English crown. A prowling band of the 
Macdonalds of Clanranald discovered them, 
set fire to the kirk, guarded the entrance with 
claymores and burned to death the entire 
congregation of Mackenzies. But the Mac- 
leods had something to say to the Mac- 
donalds. The Macdonalds of Eigg were 
caught by the Macleods in a cave. There 
were two hundred Macdonalds within the 
cave — the entire population of the island. 
The Macleods barred the entrance, built 
a fire and smoked the Macdonalds to death. 
Sir Walter Scott visited the cave two hun- 
dred and eleven years later and the bones of 
the victims still covered the floor. 

The Battle of Harlaw in 1411 decided 
that Gaelic should be supreme over Teu- 
tonic in Scotland. The haughty, contemp- 
tuous feeling of the Norman nobility towards 
the unmailed Highlanders is well expressed 



16 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

in the Ballad of Harlaw. The brave 
appearance of the two hundred mailed 
knights is spoken of and then 

" TTiey had na ridden a mile, a mile» 
A mile, but barely ten. 
When Donald came branking down the brae 
Wi* twenty thousand men. 
Their tartans they were waving wide. 
Their glaves were glancing clear. 
Their pibrochs rang frae side to side 
Would deafen ye to hear." 

The Earl of Glenallen, startled at the 
unexpected size of the enemy's force, con- 
sulted his squire as to what it were best to 
do, and the instant reply was, 

*' If they hae twenty thousand blades. 
And we twice ten times ten, 
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids 
And we are mail-clad men." 

But before the battle was over the haughty 
ones fled from those tartan plaids. 

The Macdonalds got into still further 
trouble, this time with the Macleans of 
Duart. In 1598 Lachlan Maclean from 
the castle on the coast of Mull fought in the 
dreadful clan battle of Lochgruinard against 




The Battle of Bannockburn 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 17 

the Macdonalds in Islay, when he was slain, 
courageously fighting, with eighty of the 
principal men of his kin and two hundred 
clansmen lying dead about him. This clan 
mustered five hundred claymores in ** The 
'45 " and they were in the front line 
at Culloden. Subsequently the Macleans 
of Duart and the Maclaines of Lochbuie 
fought a pitched battle near Lochbuie. 
The Macleans of Duart were defeated. 
Duart, when returning home after the 
battle, fell in with Lochbuie, who was sleep- 
ing along with some of his men. Surely here 
was a chance for vengeance placed super- 
naturally in the way. Maclean of Duart 
had been defeated by the very men now 
sleeping before him. 
Aytoun says, 

"Nowhere beats the heart so kindly 
As beneath the tartan plaid." 

Maclean of Duart drew his dagger, 
twisted it in the hair of his enemy, and then 
left him. When Maclaine awoke in the 
morning and found his hair fastened to the 



18 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

ground, he recognized the dirk, and the two 
families were friends ever after. 

Nearly one hundred years later the great 
battle of Killiekrankie was fought. The 
object of the battle was to capture Blair 
Castle from the Highlanders for it com- 
manded the pass which is the key to the 
central Highlands. It was in the early 
morning of July 27, 1689 that the mixed 
army of Lowland Scots, Dutch and English 
entered the defile of Killiekrankie. Killie- 
krankie was deemed the most perilous of all 
those dark ravines through which the 
marauders of the hills were wont to sally 
forth. A horse could be led up only with 
great difficulty and he who lost his footing 
had no hope of life. Through the gorge 
Mackay led his troops unopposed and then 
placed them as best the nature of the ground 
would permit. 

On the north, Graham of Claverhouse, 
Viscount Dundee, could be seen halting his 
Highlanders on the brow of a hill. Two 
hours went by while the sun was passing out 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 19 

of the eyes of the Highlanders, then Claver- 
house ordered the charge and the dreaded 
bagpipes rounded the war skirl. 

The Highlanders advanced in their 
usual fashion — divested of their plaids, 
with bodies bent forward and nearly cov- 
ered by their targets. On coming close to 
the enemy's front ranks they fired and threw 
away their pieces, then, setting up a wild 
yell, they hurled themselves forward, clay- 
more in hand. Breaking through the ad- 
vance guard, they carried terror and panic 
into the body of the enemy, and before many 
minutes the battle was decided in favor of 
the defending Highlanders. All was over 
and a mingled torrent of redcoats and tartans 
went raving down the valley to the Gorge of 
Killiekrankie. 

" Like a tempest down the ridges 
Swept the hurricane of steel, 
Rose the slogan of Macdonald, 
Flashed the broadsword of Lochiell 
Horse and man went down before us, 
Living foe there tarried none 
On the field of Killiekrankie 
When that stubborn Eght was donel " 



20 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

The two Scottish families of Gordon 
and Grant had been old-time allies. The 
Earl of Hundy, wishing to chastise the 
Farquharsons for the killing of a Gordon, 
arranged with the Laird of Grant that the 
latter should advance down the Dee Valley 
simultaneously with his own approach from 
the other end, so as to shut the Farquharsons 
in between two fires. 

The surprise was so complete that the 
unfortunate Clan was nearly exterminated 
and an enormous number of children made 
orphans and homeless. These, Huntly took 
home where they were treated so much like 
animals that in time they grew to be like 
them. It is alleged that the head of the 
Grants, about a year later, was shown for 
his amusement a long wooden trough outside 
the kitchen into which all the cold scraps 
and odds and ends from the table had been 
thrown. At a given signal a door was 
opened and a troop of little half naked 
savages rushed in, and falling on the trough, 
fought and tore for the food. Grant was 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 21 

greatly shocked on being told that those were 
the orphans he had helped to make. He 
got Huntly*8 permission to take them away 
with him, saw to their care and training, 
and gradually they became absorbed into 
his clan. 

About this time these victorious Gor- 
dons got into difficulties with the Forbes. 
A meeting between the two clans took place 
for the purpose of making an amicable 
settlement. The difference being made up, 
both parties sat down to a feast. 

** Now,** said Gordon to the Forbes 
chief, ** as this business has been satisfac- 
torily settled, tell me, if it had not been so, 
what was your intention? " 

" There would have been bloody 
work,'* returned Forbes, ** bloody work; 
and we should have had the best of it. I 
shall tell you. See, we are mixed, one and 
one, Forbes and Gordons.** 

The Gordon chief looked around the 
gathering and beheld that it was as his com- 
panion had said. 



22 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Forbes resumed, " I had only to give 
a sign by the stroking down of my beard, 
and every Forbes was to draw the dirk from 
under his left arm and stab to the heart his 
right-hand man.** 

As he spoke, Forbes suited the action 
to the word and stroked down his flowing 
beard. In a moment, a score of dirks were 
out, in another moment they were buried 
in as many Gordon hearts, for the Forbes» 
mistaking the motion for the agreed-upon 
sign of death, struck their weapons into the 
bodies of the unsuspecting clansmen. 

The two chiefs looked at each other in 
silent consternation. At length Forbes said, 
** This is a sad tragedy we little expected, 
but what is done cannot be undone, and the 
blood that now flows on the floor will just 
help to slacken the auld fire of Corgarf! ** 
He referred to a time when the Gordons 
burned out the Forbes. 

During the reign of James I, the Macnabs 
had suffered from the plunderings of a 
robber band of the Macnishes. More than 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 23 

once the old Macnab chief had vowed 
vengeance but the Macnishes could not be 
reached. Their retreat was an island in Loch 
Earn and they allowed no boat on that 
water but their own. One of their depreda- 
tions went beyond endurance. They way- 
laid Macnab*8 messenger with dainties for 
a Christmas feast. Macnab had twelve 
sons, the weakest of whom could drive his 
dirk through a three-inch plank at one blow. 
One of them was known ironically as 
Smooth John Macnab. On the night of 
the robbery in question, the twelve were 
sitting gloomily around their impoverished 
board when old Macnab came in. 

" The night is the night,*' he said, 
looking significandy at his sons, " if the lads 
were the lads.** 

Without a word Smooth John got up, 
followed by all his brothers, and left the 
castle. They were gone the greater part 
of the night but the old chief waited, and at 
last they came back. As they filed into the 
room Smooth John placed the bearded head 



24 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

of the old Macnish chief on the table with 
the single sentence, " The night is the night 
and the lads are the lads." 

The twelve had carried their own boat 
all the way over the mountains to Loch Earn 
and, making their way to the Macnishes' 
island, had found the robber clan in a 
drunken sleep. 

Only old Macnish was awake; and 
when he heard a noise he called out, " Who 
is there? " 

" Whom would you be most afraid to 
see?** was the reply. 

Macnish returned, "There is no man I 
would like worse to see than Smooth John 
Macnab.'* 

At that, Smooth John drove in the door, 
and the old bandit had hardly time to shriek 
before he met his end. Smooth John seized 
him by the gray hair and with one sweep of 
his dirk cut off his head. Then they pro- 
ceeded leisurely to massacre the entire clan. 
There was no more robbing of the Macnabs. 

Toward the end of the eighteenth 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 25 

century, there was a Laird of Macnab who 
had a high idea of his own feudal dignity. 
When he retired to his Highland fastnesses 
without paying his accounts it was just as 
well not to trouble him with reminders. 

A messenger from the Lowlands once 
coming with such a reminder to the Laird 
was entertained lavishly at supper where 
no mention of his business was allowed. A 
sumptuous apartment was given him for the 
night. 

The next morning the messenger was 
horrified to see a human body hanging from 
a tree outside his window. 

Asking fearhiUy what that meant he 
was informed by a retainer of the Laird that 
it was ** just a puir messenger body that had 
the presumption to come wi* a paper to 
the Laird." 

As can be gathered from what has 
already been said, clan feuds were common. 
During the course of a feud some of the 
Macdonells of Glengarry crossed the hills 
to Beauly and were the means of originating 



26 WILX) SCOTTISH CLANS 

some of the wild Highland music so often 
born amid savage scenes of human terror. 

Coming suddenly upon a congregation 
of Mackenzies at the kirk of Cill-a-Chriosd, 
they burnt building and congregation to- 
gether. While the fire was raging, Glen- 
garry's piper, to drown the shrieks of the 
victims, composed and played the pibroch 
still known by the name of Cill-a-Chriosd. 

On their way home, triumphant, the 
Macdonells found themselves pursued and 
took to flight. Their chief, closely followed 
by a gigantic Mackenzie, came over the 
shoulder of the mountain at Beauly and 
making for the Resting Burn leapt the yawn- 
ing chasm at its narrowest part.. The 
avenger leapt also. He missed his footing, 
fell back, and would have been killed but 
for a branch of a tree on the edge which he 
grasped. Macdonell, returning to the chasm, 
cut the branch with his knife and watched 
his enemy crash to death in the abyss below. 

The district of Tulloch is the scene of 
the incident which inspired the wildest of 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 27 

the Highland reels. A Macgregor had 
wooed, won and carried off Isobel, daughter 
of the laird, in spite of her friends who 
favored a suitor of Clan Robertson. The dis- 
appointed lover gathered a few followers, 
including the young lady's brother, and came 
suddenly upon his successful rival. Mac- 
gregor took refuge in a barn where with dirk 
and claymore and the musket which his wife 
loaded for him he destroyed every one of 
his assailants. So greatly was he over- 
joyed with his victory that on the spot he 
composed and danced the ** Reel o* Tul- 
loch,** wildest of the wild. 

There is a tragic sequel to the story. 
That day's prowess should have earned 
immunity for the Highlander and his young 
bride but their enemies were inexorable. 
Isobel was thrown into prison; and presendy 
they barbarously showed her the head of 
Macgregor who had been shot. At the 
sight of this bloody memorial of the man she 
had loved she was struck with anguish and 
expired. 



28 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

One of the most celebrated houses of 
Scotland is that of Douglas. Eight miles 
up the Douglas Water is the village of 
Douglas near which is the site of Douglas 
Casde. James Douglas became a page in 
the household of the patriotic Bishop of 
St. Andrews. He joined Bruce. His com- 
plexion was dark and his hair raven black, 
hence the sobriquet *' Black Douglas." He 
was of commanding stature, large limbed 
and broad shouldered, courteous in manner 
but retiring in speech. He had a lisp like 
Hector of Troy. Douglas Castle was the 
scene of many of his exploits. While Bruce 
lay near by, Douglas and two others went 
off to reconnoitre his old property. In his 
absence an English garrison had taken 
possession of Douglas Castle. A servant 
gathered a few retainers. The English 
garrison were to attend church service and 
afterwards hold high carnival in the castle. 

Disguised as countrymen, Black Doug- 
las carrying a flail, the Scotsmen attended 
the service and suddenly with the shout. 



1 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 29 

" A Douglas! A Douglas! ** they threw off 
their countrymen's mantles and attacked the 
unsuspecting soldiers, all of whom were 
killed or taken prisoners. Taking his cap- 
tives with him Black Douglas went to the 
castle and, after enjoying the feast prepared 
for the English garrison, stove in the wine 
casks and killed the prisoners. He then 
heaped up their bodies with the provisions, 
set fire to the mass and burned down the 
castle. This episode has ever since been 
known as the ** Douglas Larder.** 

Douglas retired to Galloway. He loved 
better ** to hear the lark sing than the mouse 
squeak,** he said. Clifford at once rebuilt 
the castle and put in one Thirlwall to be 
governor. Douglas vowed to be revenged. 
With a small following he returned to 
Douglasdale and perpetrated a stratagem 
as old as warfare. Setting an ambush in a 
place called Sandylands, he disguised some 
of his men as herdsmen who drove a herd of 
catde along the road in view of the casde. 
Thirlwall determined to capture the catde 



30 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

and issued out with his garrison to seize them. 
When sufficiently far from the castle, the 
party was surrounded by the ambushed 
Douglases and Thirlwall, and most of his 
men were killed. 

Black Douglas then gave out that he 
had taken a vow to be revenged on any 
Englishman who should dare to hold his 
father's castle. Douglas Castle was called 
the Perilous Castle or the Adventurous 
Castle and it became a point of honor to 
hold it. 

A certain English lady promised to 
marry an English knight if he would hold 
the Castle Perilous for a year and a day. 
Black Douglas, learning that the castle was 
short of provisions, disguised himself and 
his followers as country farmers each of 
whom carried on his horse a great sack of 
grain or hay. The garrison, seeing this 
cavalcade of traders apparently on the way 
to market, determined to seize what they so 
much required and rode out in pursuit, led 
by the knight. The disguised Scotsmen 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 31 

threw away their loads and surrounded the 
Englishmen. The party was vanquished 
and the English knight fell in the skirmish. 
In his pocket was found the letter from his 
lady love. The knightly heart of Douglas 
was touched. This time there was no after 
slaughter. The Elnglish survivors were hon- 
orably treated and dismissed in safety to 
Carlisle. But Douglas Castle was never 
again held by the English. 

Clan Macdonald, one of the most 
powerful in the Highlands, has a varied 
history. It was said by the enemies of this 
powerful race that there were more cattle- 
lifters among the Macdonalds than honest 
men in other clans. They received from 
King Robert Bruce at Bannockburn the 
honor of a place on the right of the army in 
battle. In that position they performed 
prodigies of valor. They alleged that no 
engagement could be successful if this privi- 
lege were overlooked, and they adduce the 
defeats of Harlaw and Culloden as evidences. 

The Macdonalds of Clanranald were 



32 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

once attacked by the Frasers and Grants. 
The Macdonalds retreated; the enemy, 
thinking they had dispersed, at once sepa- 
rated. The Macdonalds came upon them 
singly and slew all but one man, although 
only eight Macdonalds survived. 

The weather was so warm during this 
battle that the combatants stripped off their 
clothes and the fight was called ** The 
Battle of the Shirts." 

The Macdonalds of the Isles were so 
powerful that they were never in subjection 
to the Scottish king and sometimes defeated 
the royal troops. 

Donald Macdonald of the Isles with 
ten thousand of his clansmen marched to 
within one day's journey of Aberdeen and 
only the indecisive battle of Harlaw pre- 
vented his subverting the monarchy itself. 

During the reign of William (III) occurred 
that hideous event known as the Massacre 
of Glencoe. A monument now marks the 
spot. Glencoe is one of the wildest and most 
beautiful glens in the Highlands of Scotland 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 33 

and was inhabited by a branch of the great 
Clan Macdonald known as the Macdonalds 
of Glencoe. Earl Campbell of Breadalbane 
was given by King William the duty to 
receive the signs and bonds of submission of 
the clans and the money to pay them upon 
their submission. He also received orders 
to proceed with fire and sword against any 
refractory clans. 

The Campbells and Macdonalds of 
Glencoe were neighboring clans and the 
cattle of the Macdonalds occasionally wan- 
dered onto the Campbell land and fed there. 
In consequence, when Chief Alexander 
Macdonald of Glencoe came in to render 
submission, Earl Campbell of Breadalbane 
proposed to Glencoe that he, Campbell, 
should keep Glencoe*s submission money 
in payment for the alleged damage done to 
the Campbell lands by the wandering catde. 
Glencoe demurred, whereupon Campbell 
sent in word to the government that the 
Macdonalds of Glencoe were not making 
submission and that they were an incor- 
rigibly lawless tribe of thieves and murderers. 



34 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

The legal time for making submission 
expired on January 1, 1692. On the 
previous day, December 31, Glencoe ap- 
peared at Fort William and offered, a second 
time, to take the oath of submission but 
Colonel Hill declined to receive it, giving 
him, however, a letter to Sir Colin Camp- 
bell, at Inverary, in which he stated the case 
and asked him to receive the oath even 
though the legal time had expired. Sir 
Colin Campbell was sheriff of Argyllshire. 
Macdonald, now thoroughly alarmed for the 
safety of his clansmen, started off at once on 
his fifty-mile journey by wild mountain paths, 
across swollen streams and through deep 
snow. So eager was he to reach Inverary 
at the earliest possible moment that, al- 
though the road led close by his own house, 
he would not pause an instant. 

Arrived at last he found Sir Colin 
absent and was obliged to wait three days 
of terror for his kinsmen before Campbell 
returned. The sheriff read Colonel Hill's 
note and agreed with the justice of it and 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 35 

consequently administered the oath of sub- 
mission. He also gave Macdonald a cer- 
tificate stating that he had rendered sub- 
mission and wrote the Privy Council of the 
fact. Macdonald accordingly felt secure; 
but the secretary of the Privy Council was a 
creature who had a heart that would disgrace 
an ogre. This wretch suppressed the 
letter to the Privy Council and made no 
record of the submission. Ten days later 
an order bearing King William's signature 
was issued. It was partly as follows: ** As 
for Macdonald of Glencoe and that tribe, 
if they can be distinguished from the rest of 
the Highlanders, it will be proper for the 
vindication of public justice to extirpate 
that set of thieves.*' 

Accordingly, in the dead of winter, 
Campbell of Glenlyon came with Argyll's 
regiment to perpetrate the fiendish act. 
Macdonald met them and asked their errand 
and they told him that they came for a 
friendly visit. Thereupon, with Highland 
generosity, Macdonald opened his homes to 



36 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

the soldiers and for weeks the murderers-to- 
be were quartered on their victims-to-be. 
On the 12th of February the order for the 
commencement of the butchery arrived. 
With this order in his pocket, Glenlyon 
passed the evening of the 1 2th playing cards 
with Macdonald*s two sons and he and his 
officers accepted an invitation to dine on the 
following day with Macdonald himself. 

At 4 A. M. the slaughter began. Mac- 
donald was shot on his bed by one of the 
officers named Lindsay who was to have 
dined with him that day. His wife was 
stripped to the skin and died on the following 
day from horror and exposure. The infernal 
wretch. Secretary Stair, had meanwhile 
issued his orders in words that would befit 
the language of the imps of hell. 

" In the winter," he writes, ** they 
cannot carry their wives and children and 
cattle to the mountains. This is the proper 
season to maul them, in the long, dark 
nights! " 

Eighty victims were massacred in cold 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 37 

blood but one hundred and fifty men,women 
and children escaped. Secretary Stair, pur- 
sued by a never-relenting Nemesis, com- 
mitted suicide. 

Fearing that the Caihpbell regiment 
would return to finish the massacre of the 
remaining Macdonalds, the survivors pro- 
tected themselves in a manner which origi- 
nated perhaps the most famous and immortal 
piece of bagpipe music in all Scotland. 
From its original bagpipe setting it has been 
put into a song none other than ** The 
Campbells Are Coming." It was the cus- 
tom in those times to cause captured bag- 
pipers to play for the benefit of their captors 
and frequently when one clan went to attack 
another a bagpiper of the assailed clan 
would be captured far from his native heath 
and be compelled to play for the advance of 
the attacking party. 

So the Macdonalds of Glencoe who had 
survived the massacre made an agreement 
with their bagpipers that if any of them 
were caught by the returning Campbells 



38 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

they should play the piece invented at the 
time which would tell the Macdonalds that 
the Campbells were coming. When the 
Campbells did return to finish their horrid 
work given them to do by the English 
government they captured a Macdonald 
bagpiper, and he, true to his oath to his 
fellow-clansmen, lustily struck up ** The 
Campbells Are Coming ** and continued to 
play the tune until near Glencoe when the 
alarmed clansmen took flight. The Camp- 
bells never knew, till long after, the reason 
why they found no Macdonalds in the glen 
of blood. 

The most famous clan in all Scotland, 
and the one which has had more parliamen- 
tary acts passed about it than any other clan 
or combination of clans — famous for its 
misfortunes, and, as Sir Walter Scott says, 
** for the indomitable courage with which 
they maintained themselves as a clan ** after 
the British parliament had determined upon 
their annihilation, and even the penalty 
of death was pronounced against any perton 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 39 

bearing the name — is that of Gregor or 
Macgregor. 

Again the Minstrel of the Border says 
of the Macgregors: "The energy and spirit 
which sustained them in misfortune charac- 
terize them still.*' From their habitat the 
Macgregors are called ** The Children of 
the Mist/* 

The history of this clan, descended from 
King Alpin and sometimes called Clan 
Alpin, is long and striking. Its length is 
attested by the Scottish saying ** Hills and 
streams and Macalpins ** putting back their 
origin to that of the hills and streams. 

** My race is royal " is their proud 
boast. The Macgregors fought with their 
full force at Bannockburn. 

Living in the vicinity of Loch Tay, a 
particularly sterile section of the always 
stubborn-soiled Highlands, only with great 
difficulty did the Macgregors raise anything 
to support themselves. Surrounded by pow- 
erful clans who hemmed them in, their only 
recourse was to fight for a living and this 



40 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

made them the greatest fighters in all Scot- 
land. 

When their bright red tartans descended 
from the Glenarchy hills there were few who 
cared to oppose them. 

Time and again, century after century, 
marauding bands of the Macgregors came 
down from their mist enshrouded fastnesses 
and drove home the cattle of the neighbor- 
ing clans. 

Owing to a desire for the lands of the 
hemmed-in Macgregors and also desirous 
of breaking the power of so virile a clan, the 
neighbors of the Macgregors plotted their 
destruction. Persecutions they brought them 
but downfall never. 

They were attacked on all sides. The 
sanguinary batde of Glenfruin was forced 
upon the Macgregors. Sir Humphrey Col- 
quhoun undertook to coerce the Macgregors 
with unsatisfactory results. Alastair Mac- 
gregor of Glenstrae, their chief, went to 
Luss, Colquhoun's territory, with only two 
hundred Macgregors for an amicable setde- 
ment of the trouble. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 41 

The interview was satisfactory to all 
appearances and the two hundred Macgreg- 
ors started homewards. But Colquhoun 
treacherously determined to take advantage 
of them. Collecting some Buchanans, 
Graemes and others to the number of five 
hundred horsemen and three hundred foot 
they waylaid the two hundred homeward- 
bound Macgregors in the vale of Glenfruin* 
where there was no road, and immediately 
attacked them without any provocation. 

It would seem reasonable to state that 
such a piece of consummate treachery has 
rarely been equalled, but the outcome was 
not as the perpetrators planned. Many 
years later there lived a ploughman poet of 
Scodand who wisely wrote: 

"But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane 
In proving foresight may be vain; 
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley. 
And lea'e us nought but grief an' pain 

For promis'd joy." 

The God of batdes defended the inno- 
cent in that bloody transaction and, incred- 



n 



42 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

ible as it may seem, the eight hundred 
enemies of the two hundred Macgregors 
only succeeded in killing two Macgregors. 
Fired by righteous wrath and their indomit- 
able spirit the Macgregors pressed the 
uneven fight till there was hardly a survivor 
of their enemy. 

The district on the west shore of Loch 
Lomond is associated with some savage 
passages in the clan wars of the Highlands. 
There, at Bannachra Castle the Macgregors 
and Macfarlanes besieged and killed Sir 
Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss in 1 592. 

Subsequently the Macgregors and Mac- 
farlanes themselves got into difficulties and 
the Macgregors straightened the matter out 
by completely annihilating the Macfarlanes 
who were responsible. About ten years 
later, the Macgregors killed a royal deer- 
keeper named Drummond and, asking at 
his sister's house for food, they placed the 
murdered man's head on the table with the 
mouth stuffed with bread and cheese, where 
•he could see it on entering the room. Other 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 43 

acts of savagery following quickly upon this, 
a strong effort to break the strength of the 
Macgregors was determined upon. 

More than a hundred widows of the 
members of Clan Colquhoun who had been 
killed at Glenfruin by the Macgregors rode 
through the streets of Stirling, each one 
dressed in weeds, mounted upon a white 
palfry and bearing aloft upon a spear her 
husband's blood-stained shirt. Many women 
waved also the shirts of other men, and the 
total was more than two hundred. The aim 
of this demonstration was to arouse the 
government of James VI to take measures 
against the Macgregors. James was easy 
of persuasion, and accordingly, within a 
month, the name of Macgregor was abol- 
ished by Act of Privy Council and it was 
decreed that anyone calling himself Gregor 
or Macgregor must take another surname 
under pain of death. 

More than one hundred years later, 
David Balfour, hero of Stevenson's novel 
of that name, met a lassie of apparent note 



44 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

in the streets of Edinburgh and she befriended 
him. She learned that he had come from 
Balquhidder. He, being moved by a spirit 
of gratitude for what she had done for him, 
said, ** I wish that you would keep my name 
in mind for the sake of Balquhidder; and I 
will yours for the sake of my lucky day." 

" My name is not spoken," she replied, 
with a great deal of haughtiness. '*More 
than a hundred years it has not gone upon 
men's tongues, save for a blink. I am 
nameless like the fairies. Catriona Drum- 
mond is the one I use." 

" Now," said Balfour, " I knew where 
I was standing. In all broad Scotland there 
was but the one name proscribed, and that 
was the name of the Macgregors." 

All the Macgregors connected in any 
way with the battle at Glenfruin were 
prohibited from carrying any weapon other 
than a poindess knife wherewith to cut up 
food. In 1613 this Act was repeated and 
again four years later and members of the 
Clan were forbidden to assemble in numbers 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 45 

exceeding four. Within a year thereafter 
Allaster Macgregor of Glenstrae, who had 
commanded at Glenfruin, and about thirty- 
five of the clan had been taken and hanged. 
With the Restoration in the reign of Charles 
II and James II the Acts against the Clan 
Macgregor were repealed, but they were 
re-enacted during the Revolution. 

To these Acts of oppression the Mac- 
gregors responded with unabated fortitude. 
Their lands were taken from them by the 
king and given to powerful neighbors who 
had really been the instigators of the oppres- 
sions of the Macgregors for the sake of 
obtaining their lands. These grantees came 
to take the lands by virtue of their parchment 
rolls and found a battle line of the Mac- 
gregors awaiting to defend their hereditary 
title with the naked claymore. The atti- 
tude of the Macgregors is best expressed in 
the wild gathering song of the Clan: 

** The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, 
And the clan has a name that is nameless by day. 
Our signal for fight, which from monarchs we drew. 
Must be heard but by night in our vengehil haloo. 



46 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

TTien haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach. 

If they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles. 

Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the 

eagles. 
Then gather, gather, gather — gather, gather, 

gather. 
While there's leaves in the forest or foam on the river, 
Macgregor, despite them, shall flourish forever. 
Glenorchy's proud mountain, Colchurn and her 

towers, 
Glenstrae and Glenlyon, no longer are ours; 
We're landless, landless, landless, Gregalach, 
Landless, landless, landless. 
Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall 

career. 
O'er the peak of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer. 
And the rocks of Craig Royston like icicles melt. 
Ere our wrongs be forgot or our vengeance unfelt. 
Then haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach. 
If they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles. 
Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the 

eagles. 
Then gather, gather, gather, gather, gather, gather. 
While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the 

river, 
Macgregor, despite them, shall flourish forever." 

So unmerited were the wrongs of the 
Macgregors, so bravely were they borne 
for two hundred years, that to this day it is 
often the custom for clan gatherings to rise 
from the food-laden board, lift their glasses 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 47 

and drink heartily to the toast — ** Clan 
Macgregorl " 

Finally, about one hundred years ago, 
by Act of the British Parliament, the penal 
statutes against the Macgregors were forever 
abolished. 

It was during the period when the use of 
the name Macgregor was prohibited that the 
most famous member of the clan flour- 
ished. 

Robert Campbell Macgregor, com- 
monly called Rob Roy or Robert the Red, 
was brought up on a farm in Balquhidder 
near the head of Loch Earn, previously 
mentioned in connection with the adventure 
of Smooth John Macnab and his eleven 
brothers. He was born about the year 
1 67 1 . His mother was a Campbell and, 
as Macgregor was proscribed, with repug- 
nance he assumed his mother's name. 

Previous to the year 1712 he was 
occupied in a perfectly legitimate manner 
as a thriving cattle trader with the Low- 
landers of the Scottish Borders and he had 



48 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

the confidence and protection of the Duke 
of Montrose. A series of unfortunate ven- 
tures, however, put an end to this period 
of prosperity, and Rob Roy found himself 
indebted in large sums to Montrose and 
others. Proceedings were taken against 
him in the course of which his wife and 
children were evicted from their home in 
midwinter. Deprived of the ordinary means 
of livelihood, hunted, anathematized, he 
began the period of outlawry with which 
his name is associated. Proscribed and 
shut out from every lawful calling, Rob 
Roy, who conceived the action of Montrose 
as unjust and tyrannical, attached himself 
to the rival house of Argyll, whose name 
he had assumed. 

With a band of disaffected persons 
belonging mainly to l:is own clan, Rob Roy 
set up as a freebooter and protector of 
weaker property rights for a stipulated price. 

** His stature,** writes Sir Walter Scott, 
" was not of the tallest, but his person was 
uncommonly strong and compact. The 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 49 

greatest peculiarities of his person were the 
breadth of his shoulders and the great and 
almost disproportioned length of his arms, 
so remarkable indeed that it was said that 
he could, without stooping, tie the garters 
of his Highland hose, which are placed two 
inches below the knee. His countenance 
was open, manly, stern at periods of danger, 
but frank and cheerful in his hours of festi- 
vity. His hair was dark red, thick and 
frizzled and curled short around the face. 
Though a descendant of the bloodthirsty 
Ciar Mohr, he inherited none of his ances- 
tor's ferocity. On the contrary Rob Roy 
avoided every appearance of cruelty, and 
it is not averred that he was ever the means 
of unnecessary bloodshed or the actor in any 
deed which could lead the way to it. Like 
Robin Hood of England he was a kind and 
gentle robber, and while he took from the 
rich, was liberal in relieving the poor.*' 

His lawless life went on from year to 
year until the English government put a 
price upon his head. When this became 



50 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

known to Rob Roy he assembled his clans- 
men, armed them fully and marched down 
into a Lowland city. When arrived, he 
and his retainers passed through the streets 
of the city and waited for someone to attempt 
his capture but no hostile hand was raised. 

Finally the government sent a regiment 
into Rob*s territory to capture him. Wolfe, 
of Quebec fame, was an officer in that regi- 
ment. When the English had arrived un- 
opposed in Rob*8 vicinity Rob Roy him- 
self walked into their camp and said to an 
officer, ** You seek Rob Roy Macgregor. 
Here I am.** Even then they dared not 
touch him for they knew his clansmen were 
behind every rock. 

An earthwork was thrown up by the 
English and Rob sent in word that he would 
wait until they finished it before he captured 
it. When the fort was completed Rob and 
his clansmen stormed it and it fell. The 
prisoners were sent to the Lowlands with a 
note from Rob Roy asking the government 
to send men, not women, to capture Rob 
Roy Macgregor. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 51 

Sir Walter Scott gives the following 
tradition regarding the manner of Rob Roy*5 
death. When very near his end, a certain 
Maclaren, who had been an enemy, came 
to see him. 

** Raise me from my bed," said Rob; 
" throw my plaid around me and bring me 
my claymore, dirk and pistols. It shall 
never be said that a foeman saw Rob Roy 
Macgregor defenseless and unarmed.'* 

Rob Roy maintained a cold, haughty 
civility during the short conference, and as 
soon as Maclaren had left the house he said, 
*' Now, all is over; let the piper play * We 
Return No More,' " and he is said to have 
expired before the dirge was finished. He 
was buried in the kirkyard of Balquhidder 
where his tombstone is only distinguished 
by a rude attempt at a figure of a broad- 
sword. 

At the time of the story of Stevenson's 
** Kidnapped," its hero says upon coming to 
Balquhidder: ** In the braes of Balquhidder 
were many of that old, proscribed, nameless. 



52 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

red-handed clan of the Macgregors. Their 
chief, Macgregor of Macgregor, was in 
exile; James More, Rob Roy's eldest son, 
lay waiting his trial in Edinburgh Castle; 
they were in ill blood with Highlander and 
Lowlander. Robin Oig, another of Rob 
Roy*8 sons, stepped about Balquhidder like 
a gentleman in his own walled garden. It 
was he who had shot James Maclaren, the 
clansman who had visited his dying father, 
yet he walked into the house of his blood 
enemies as a commercial traveller into a 
public inn. The corrie is still pointed out 
on Cruachan where the last Macgregor of 
the neighborhood to be hunted with a 
bloodhound like a wild beast, turned to bay 
and shot his deep mouthed tracker. The 
Earl of Murray transplanted three hundred 
of the proscribed Macgregors from Men- 
teith, and setded them as a barrier against 
another turbulent clan, the Mackintoshes, 
in Aberdeenshire. There, under the name 
of Gregory, these descendants of the Clan 
Alpin gave birth not only to some, but to a 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 53 

whole galaxy of the most distinguished men 
that Scotland has produced. In the church, 
in the army, in the civil professions, Mac- 
gregor has long been, and is now, a familiar 
and an honored name.** 

But to other themes! The spirit of 
Mary Stuart hung heavy over the hills of 
her own bonnie Scotland. Her untimely 
death by treachery was not forgotten and the 
mutterings to her and to her race in the breasts 
of the Scots from time to time grew audible. 
On a November day in 1715 there 
occurred the ill-managed batde of Sheriff- 
muir on the moor above Dunblane where 
the sheriff's weaponscha wings*' were held in / 
old times. This battle put an end to the 
first Jacobite rebellion. 

The circumstances of the fight are well 
known. The Earl of Mar was marching 
from Perth to surprise Argyll, the royalist 
general, who lay in Stirling. Argyll 
marched to meet the enemy with a force of 
only three thousand five hundred while that 
of Mar was nine thousand strong. On the 



54 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

night of the 13 th, the Highland army, ever 
true to the Stuarts, came into view around 
the shoulder of the Ochils; and the ancient 
Gathering Stone on the moor is pointed out 
as the place where the Highlanders sharp- 
ened their claymores and dirks. The right 
wings of both armies began the battle and 
both right wings were victorious but no 
further fighting was done and the armies 
gradually drew away from each other, 
leaving one thousand dead on the field. 
The batde cannot fairly be regarded as a 
loss to either side, and the following rhyme 
contains a true account of it. 

*' Some say that we wan, 
Some say that they wan. 
And some say that nane wan at a*, man; 
But o' a'e thing Tm sure 
That at Sheriffmuir 
A battle there was that I saw, man; 
And we ran, and they ran. 
And they ran, and we ran. 
And we ran and they ran awa*, man." 

Rob Roy Macgregor stood aloof and 
watched the proceedings with five hundred 
Macgregors. When appealed to by Mar 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 55 

to take part in the action, Rob refused, 
saying, ** No, no, if it cannot be done without 
me it cannot be done with me." The cen- 
tury was not to complete its cycle before 
these Macgregors were to cover themselves 
with immortal glory at the battle of CuUoden. 

Before that century had elapsed a 
period had arrived in Scottish history which 
has not a parallel extant — a period marked 
by fortitude, devotion and self-sacrifice 
which it may be possible to say has not an 
equal in history. It is known in Scotland 
as "The '45,'* referring to the year 1 745. / 
Around that date cluster more romance and ^ 
song than around any other. 

Inverness-shire is more closely asso- 
ciated with the Jacobite rising known as 
'* The *45 '* than any other county in Scot- 
land. It was on the island of Eriska that 
Prince Charles Edward first set foot on 
Scottish soil; at Highbridge occurred the 
first outbreak of hostilities; at Glenfinnan 
the standard was raised; at Invergarry the 
chiefs signed a bond to stand or fall together; 



56 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

on CuUoden Muir was fought the closing 
and decisive battle of the campaign; and, 
finally, it was the wild mountainous region 
of western Inverness-shire, and the desolate 
islands of the western Hebrides that received 
and concealed the Prince during those five 
months* wanderings which constitute the 
most romantic episode in the history, one 
might almost say of any country, but most 
certainly of Scotland. 

Charles Edward Lewis Casimir was 
the elder son of James (son of James VII) 
sometimes called the Pretender and some- 
times the Chevalier de St. George. 

His mother was Clementina, grand- 
daughter of John Sobieski, King of Poland. 
He was born at Rome on December 20, 
1720, and thus was but twenty-four years 
old when, despairing of obtaining that aid 
from France which had all along been 
deemed necessary for the attempt to place 
his father on the British throne — then in the 
possession of his second cousin and her 
husband— he determined to try what daring 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 57 

and his own winning personality could 
accomplish. 

On June 22, 1 745, Prince Charlie, at- 
tended by only seven adherents, embarked at 
Nantes on board La T>outelle and twelve 
days later he was joined by the Elizabeth a 
French ship of war privately fitted out. Dur- 
ing thevoyagetheE/Zzafcc/A attacked a British 
man-of-war and received such injuries as 
compelled her to put back to France. La 
Doutelle proceeded alone, and on July 23, 
a month from the date of embarkation, 
Prince Charlie landed on the bleak little 
island of Eriska, in the Outer Hebrides, 
and spent his first night in what he looked 
upon as his father's rightful kingdom, in 
the cottage of a tenant of the Macdonalds 
of Clanranald. 

As that little ship approached the wild 
Scottish coast and the Prince gazed on the 
land of his royal fathers, wondering what 
the outcome of his righteous effort would be, 
a large Hebridean eagle came and hovered 
over the vessel. It was first observed by the 



58 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Marquis of TuIIibardine, who did not 
choose to make any remark upon it at once 
lest he be deemed superstitious. 

Some hours later, on returning to the 
deck after dinner and seeing the eagle still 
following their course, the Marquis pointed 
it out to the Prince, saying, ** Sir, this is a 
happy omen: the king of birds is come to 
welcome your royal highness on your arrival 
in Scotland." 

It would have seemed so on that memo- 
rable day, months later, in Edinburgh 
when, on the eve of the Batde of Prestonpans, 
in the presence of Prince Charles Edward, 
James, his exiled father, was proclaimed 
James VIII, King of Great Britain and 
Ireland. That was the occasion of the most 
ardent enthusiasm Edinburgh has displayed 
in all its centuries of existence. 

As the Prince rode up the street dressed 
in the Highland garb of the royal Stuarts 
with his own additional markings, ladies 
pressed to touch his stirrup and kiss his hand, 
rank and beauty crowded the balconies 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 59 

and forestalls, and scarfs, kerchiefs and 
banners waved. 

As the heralds, in their antique dress, 
with blast of trumpet proclaimed the king, 
the loveliest of the Jacobite ladies rode 
through the throng distributing the white 
cockade. Wild with delight, at the ball in 
Holyrood, to see the heir of the Scottish 
kings appear once more in the palace of 
his fathers, the bravest blood of all Scotland 
that night crowded the halls. 

The daughters of lord and chief cast 
on the Prince looks of undisguised devotion. 
Never had so gallant a prince appealed to 
his subjects in such romantic circumstances, 
and never did a people receive their sover- 
eign with so much rapture. 

Here on the following day he received 
a bitter disappointment. Alexander Mac- 
donald of Boisdale, brother of Clanranald, 
chief of an important branch of the Clan 
Macdonald, came to assure the Prince of 
the hopelessness of the expedition. With- 
out men, arms and money, he declared. 



60 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

nothing could be done, nor could the clani 
be counted upon to rise. 

He ended by begging the Prince to 
return home, to which the latter made reply, 
** I am come home, sir, and can entertain 
no notion of returning to the place whence 
I came. I am persuaded that my faithful 
Highlanders will stand by me." 

Well indeed did the bonnie Prince 
know the temper of Highland blood! 
Boisdale left him persisting in his refusal 
to influence his brother to call out his clan. 

While the entire party were still on 
board La Doutelle and when as yet the foot 
of Prince Charles Edward had not been 
placed on Scottish soil, in spite of the pro- 
testations of Clanranald and others Charles 
persisted and implored. 

During the conversation the parties 
were gesticulating on the deck near where 
a Highlander stood armed at all points, as 
was then the custom. He was a younger 
brother of Kinlochmoidart and had come 
off to enquire for news, not knowing who 
was on board. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 61 

When he gathered from the discourse 
that the stranger was the heir of Britain, 
when he heard his chief and brothers refuse 
to take up arms for their Prince, his color 
went and came, his eyes sparkled, he shifted 
his place and grasped his claymore. 

Charles observed his demeanor, and 
turning suddenly round, appealed to him: 
" Will you not assist me? ** 

" I will! I will! ** exclaimed Ranald. 
" Though not another man in the Highlands 
should draw a sword, I am ready to die for 
you! ** 

The tears of gratitude came into the 
eyes of the Prince and the thanks to his lips. 
The Prince proceeded to the mainland, 
landing at Borradale in the country of 
Clanranald. Young Clanranald visited the 
Prince on the ship and heartily embraced 
his cause. At Borradale most disheartening 
news was received from Macleod of Mac- 
leod and Sir Alexander Macdonald of 
Sleat. The two Skye chiefs mentioned, 
upon whose adherence the Prince had con- 



62 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

fidently relied, not only refused to join in 
the expedition but actually gave active aid 
to the government. So desperate was the 
oudook at this juncture that all those about 
the Prince joined in endeavoring to per- 
suade him to abandon the attempt and 
return to France. 

What king has ever shown better spirit 
than the Prince in his reply that, if he could 
find but six men willing to follow him, he 
would choose rather to skulk among the 
mountains of Scotland than to turn back. 
In all history what royal scion has uttered 
braver words or ones more worthy of 
laudation. 

Lochiel, chief of Clan Cameron, came 
to Borradale bent upon persuading the 
Prince from making the attempt but the 
result of the interview was his own promise 
to join. Prince Charlie reproachfully an- 
nounced his purpose to raise the royal 
standard with the few friends he had. 

" Lochiel,*' he declared, ** who my 
father has often told me was our firmest friend, 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 63 

may stay at home and learn from a distance 
the fate of his Prince.** 

Lochiel replied that not he alone but 
"every man over whom nature or fortune'* had 
given him power should share the Prince's 
fate. Macdonald of Glengarry promised 
to send out his clan. 

Thus it was decided to raise the stand- 
ard of James VIII at Gleniinnan, and 
messengers were sent throughout the country 
calling upon all who favored the cause to 
meet the Prince there. At about this time 
two companies of Royal Scots, a regiment 
of regulars, were taken prisoners by a hastily 
assembled body of Highlanders on the 
shores of the now Caledonian Canal. 

The Royal Scots were marching along 
when the dreaded sound of the bagpipes 
broke upon their unaccustomed Lowland 
ears and they were terror-stricken to see 
their way blocked by what appeared to be 
a considerable body of Highlanders. The 
object of their alarm was ten or twelve 
Macdonalds who, by skipping and leaping 



64 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

about and by holding out their tartans 
between each other, contrived to make a 
formidable appearance. The outcome was 
the capture of the two hundred Lowlanders 
by the dozen Highlanders. 

On August 19 the Prince reached 
Glenfinnan, but to his great disappointment 
none of the clans had assembled. Only 
about two hundred of Clanranald*s men were 
present and the actual raising of the standard 
was intrusted to the Marquis of Tullibardine 
who was in such feeble health that two 
Highlanders had to support him to the top 
of a small elevation, now marked by a 
monumental tower, selected for the ceremony 
of raising the standard of Bonnie Prince 
Charlie, relative of Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Tullibardine then flung upon the moun- 
tain winds that flag which, shooting like 
a streamer from the north, was soon to spread 
such woe and terror over the peaceful vales 
of Britain. A declaration in the name of 
James VIII to the people of Great Britain, 
a commission appointing the Prince to be 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 65 

regent in place of his absent father, and a 
manifesto by the Prince were then read. 
The loyal clans poured in. A few days 
later intelligence was received of the steps 
the government was taking to suppress the 
rising. 

A reward of $1 50,000 had been offered 
for the Prince who retaliated by offering the 
same amount for the apprehension of the 
so-called Elector of Hanover. Word was 
also brought that General Cope, for the 
government, was marching toward the moun- 
tain pass of Corryarick, about ten miles 
south of Fort Augustus. 

A detachment was sent forward to 
seize the pass and the rest of the army fol- 
lowed the next day. After crossing the 
Corryarick Pass the Highlanders, now 
augmented by various bodies of recruits, 
found that General Cope had turned aside 
to march to Inverness, thus avoiding the 
battle which the Highlanders were longing 
to give. Had the decisive batde been 
fought then instead of under the circum- 



66 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

stances of semi-starvation and frightful odds 
of CuUoden, the result would have been 
vastly different to British history. 

** Cam* ye by Athol, lad with the philabeg, 
Doun by the Tummel or the banks of the Garry? 
Saw ye the lads with their bonnets and white 

cockades 
Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie? 

** Follow thee, follow thee, wha wadna follow thee? 
Lang thou hast loved and trusted us fairly, 
Charlie, Charlie, wha wadna follow thee? 
King o* the Highland hearts, Bonnie Prince 
Chadie! " 

Ravages by night and day, bribes of 
unheard-of size, destructions of homes and 
families, hunger, thirst, nakedness, peril 
and sword endured for Charlie's sake, sub- 
sequently proved beyond a peradventure 
the kingship of Bonnie Prince Charlie over 
Highland hearts. 

As General Cope had too much the 
start of the Highlanders for pursuit it was 
determined to turn as once to the Lowlands 
with a view to the capture of Edinburgh. 
From the pass of Corryarick a detachment 
was sent to make an attempt to capture the 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 67 

government barracks of Badenoch. They 
brought back an important captive — Ewan 
Macpherson of Cluny, captured at Cluny 
Casde. Macpherson had left Sir John Cope 
only the day before to raise his clan for the 
government. But he had been contemptu- 
ously treated by Cope who, with extraordi- 
nary fatuity, could not see the difference 
between a captain of the line and a High- 
land chief, whose word was law to a whole 
clan and who could command the unques- 
tioned service of four hundred claymores. 
He was furious at Cope and the persuasions 
of his Jacobite friends so acted on him that, 
after ten days' imprisonment in the Jacobite 
camp, he again returned home to raise his 
clan but now for Prince Charlie whom he 
afterwards joined and served to the end. 
Leaving Perth, the Highland army marched 
to Dunblane and to Edinburgh. Then 
came the victorious battle of Prestonpans 
which gave them Edinburgh. 

Charles, while in Edinburgh, learned 
that General Cope had landed at Dunbar 



68 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

and was at last marching to give him battle 
which he had previously avoided. 

The brave Prince proposed to meet him 
half way and asked the Highland chiefs 
how the clansmen would behave toward 
a general who had already avoided them. 
The reply was from Keppoch who was the 
only one who had seen the Highlanders in 
action against regular troops. He said 
** Your Highness will be pleased with their 
conduct." 

The Prince, putting himself at the head 
of the Highlanders, presented his claymore 
and spoke aloud, **My friends, I have thrown 
away the scabbard! ** 

When the royal troops first perceived 
the army of the Prince they raised a shout, 
to which the Highlanders readily replied. 
As evening drew on, after the cannon had 
been ineffectually playing on the Highland 
ranks, the Scotsmen wrapped themselves 
in their tartans and lay down to sleep on the 
stubble fields. Prince Charlie slept thus 
with his true-hearted men. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 69 

Oh, that fateful night! The Southron 
forces little knew the mettle of the kilted 
men so near them. What would the 
morrow disclose? Who would be first to 
fall, and how many would never return to 
England? But, on the other hand, would 
there be a batde? Would not those wild 
Highlanders be awed by the great military 
display before them, and retreat? In the 
English hearts there was something which 
told them that they would not. 

At length the first intimations of ap- 
proaching day came but the mists of Scotland 
hung heavy over the field. In the English 
camp not a sound could be heard in the 
Scottish army. Why that awe-inspiring 
silence? The sentries peered fearfully 
through the fog. 

All at once there was a universal start 
of fright on the Southron picket line. Here 
and there in the clouds of vapor could be 
seen bodies of men rushing forward in 
absolute silencel On this side were men in 
red tartans, on that in blue; here was green, 



70 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

and there, yellow. As soundless as the 
interweavings of the mist was their running 
approach! 

Nothing is more terrifying than an 
enemy in the dark especially when you 
know that he is approaching without sound. 
The Elnglish were terror-stricken. They 
did not know the efficient method of fighting 
employed by Scotia's Gaelic sons. 

This method caused them to advance 
with the utmost rapidity toward the enemy, 
give fire only when in actual musket length 
of the human object of the attack, and then, 
throwing down their firearms, draw their 
claymores and holding a dirk in the left 
hand along with the target on the left arm 
dart with fury on the enemy through the 
smoke of their fire. 

When within reach of the enemy's 
bayonets, bending their left knee, they con- 
trived to receive the thrust on their targets; 
then raising their left arm and with it the 
enemy's bayonet point, they rushed in upon 
the soldier, now defenseless, killed him at 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 71 

one blow, and were in a moment within 
the lines, pushing right and left with sword 
and dagger, often bringing down two men 
at once. These tactics won the battle of 
Prestonpans in just four minutes. All that 
followed was carnage. 

There is a stirring picture of the advance 
of the Highlanders at Prestonpans which 
is an inspiration to all who see it. Advanc- 
ing up the hill, and therefore at a disad- 
vantage, is the braw double line of laddies 
from the mountains; Prince Charlie leads 
the second line. On each face is pictured 
a self-sacrificing purpose willing to forfeit 
life itself to maintain; each strong right hand 
clasps the unconquered claymore of Scotland 
and each left arm is bent behind its 
javelin pointed targe; victory is spelled on 
their faces. 

The wounded of the royal army were 
treated by their conquerers with a degree of 
humanity which might well have been 
imitated by the English on a subsequent 
occasion. 



11 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Immediately after Prestonpans came 
the advance of the Highland army into 
England itself and 

" England shall many a day tell of the bloody fray. 
When all the blue bonnets came over the Borcfer.** 

There were many in Lancashire and 
Wales ready to join the standard of the 
Stuart king. The army had then increased 
to six thousand men who had left homes and 
families and now native country simply to 
fight for the right and justice. In all that went 
before this and all that comes after, it should 
be remembered that these devoted men were 
well aware that no advantage would accrue 
to themselves from all that they did or were 
going to do. They were animated by pure 
love and desire to see filial devotion prevail 
in the royal as well as in their own families. 

Terror unmitigated spread throughout 
England, especially in the counties imme- 
diately subject to the Highlanders approach. 
No one had ever seen any large body of 
Highlanders and few knew anything about 
them. It was commonly reported that they 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 73 

were pagan savages, cut-throats and des- 
poilers of all despoilable. 

Contrary to expectation and greatly 
to the surprise of the English, the High- 
landers neither attempted to cut the throats 
nor violate the property of the inhabitants. 
Carlisle, England, was captured. It is 
credibly stated that women hid their children 
at the Highlanders* approach under the 
impression that they were cannibals, fond 
in particular of the flesh of infants. 

Everywhere there was great surprise 
that these men, so far from acting like savage 
robbers, expressed a polite gratitude for 
what refreshments were given them. 

The great city of Manchester was 
entered and recruits obtained. On the first 
of December, 1745, the army left Man- 
chester with London as their object. On 
the 4th the army of the Prince entered 
Derby. Charles was now within one hun- 
dred and twenty-seven miles of the capital 
of England. No invading band since the 
Saxon kings ever advanced so far into 
Elngland. 



74 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

The common expectation was that the 
longed-for battle was to take place and there 
was a general sharpening of broadswords. 
Although three separate English armies were 
organized against them they did not dare to 
give the Highlanders batde. Litde did the 
faithful Highlanders think that at this time 
when their quarry was within their grasp 
they were to be turned back by their officers. 

Inasmuch as the three armies about 
them numbered thirty thousand to their six 
thousand, the chiefs determined upon a 
retreat to Scodand and the Esk was forded 
into that country on December 20th. 

The men had been two months away 
from their own country. Many were bare- 
footed and barelegged, their exposed limbs 
were red with the winter weather and their 
hair matted and falling over their eyes. 

An eye witness said, ** I saw the clans 
march through Annandale to Dumfries; 
Prince Charles walked at the head of the 
Clan Macpherson, which defeated the Duke 
of Cumberland's horse and gave some check 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 75 

to the advance of the English troops. He 
was a tall, well-made young man; his 
deportment affable and princely. When 
the Highland army crossed the Esk River 
it was flooded and the Highlanders had to 
ford it, nearly one hundred packed together 
to avoid being carried away by the stream. 
Prince Charles took one of them on his own 
horse and desired the officers to do the same. 
On reaching the shore, the dripping and 
benumbed Highlanders danced a reel on 
the frozen ground to restore their circulation 
and dry their clothes. One hundred pipers 
played the reel. The Jacobite song, ** The 
Hundred Pipers,** originated thus. 

" Will they all return to their ain dear glen? 
Will they all return, our Highland men? 
Second sighted Sandy looked full wae. 
And mithers grat when they marched away. 
Then it's o'er the Border, awa'! awa'I 
It's o'er the Border, awa'! awa'! 
We'll on and we'll march to Carlisle ha*, 
Wi* its yetts its anows and a', and a'! " 

Stirling Castle was captured. ' 

On the 1 7th of January the army of the 
Prince defeated General Hawley at Falkirk 



76 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

against most desperate odds. A fortnight 
later, hearing that the Duke of Cumberland 
-had joined the government army as com- 
mander in chief, the Highland chief, in spite 
of their unbroken chain of victories, feeling 
too weak to resist him, insisted on the Prince 
retreating to the Highlands, and the march 
north began on February I. On the 12th 
of February the Prince crossed into Inverness- 
shire and arrived at Moy Hall, the seat of 
the chief of Clan Mackintosh. Lord Lou- 
don, commanding the garrison at Inverness, 
set out with a body of fifteen hundred troops 
to surprise the Prince in the night at Moy 
Hall. Lady Mackintosh instantly despatched 
a boy to give warning. On the road he was 
overtaken by Loudon's soldiers but he hid 
in a ditch until they had passed. 

A blacksmith named Fraser, curious to 
see the Prince, had come to Moy Hall the 
evening before and Lady Mackintosh sent 
him out with four others to patrol the Inver- 
ness road beyond the line of the guards and 
sentries. On perceiving Lord Loudon*t 




Bonnie Prince Charlie 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 77 

force approaching, Fraser stationed his four 
men at a little distance the one from the 
other, and firing his musket at the advancing 
body of fifteen hundred ordered the others 
to do the same. Eraser's shot killed the 
Macleod's piper, the most celebrated musi- 
cian in the Highlands; the others also took 
effect, and when Fraser followed up the 
attack by calling out valiantly for imaginary 
regiments of Camerons and Macdonalds 
to advance, the soldiers of Loudon were 
seized with panic, and, wheeling about in 
the dark, the whole body fled in the utmost 
confusion back to Inverness. This event 
is called the Rout of Moy. The bed in 
which the Prince slept and the Highland 
bonnet he wore are still preserved at Moy. 
The Highland army entered Inverness 
close upon the heels of Lord Loudon's 
retreating force and Inverness Castle was 
captured. This was followed by the cap- 
ture of Fort Augustus held by the govern- 
ment in the very heart of the country loyal 
to the Prince and Scotland. In the mean- 



78 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

time Lord Loudon was driven out of Suther- 
land and his force scattered to the four winds 
and a brilliant operation was executed in 
Perthshire whereby with the aid of Cluny 
Macpherson thirty of the government posts 
were simultaneously captured. In all the 
annals of war where can you find the parallel 
of that feat? 

Another success followed, the skirmish 
of Keith. The place was garrisoned by 
thirty dragoons and seventy Campbells and 
all who were not killed were captured. To 
furnish the thunder cloud to the otherwise 
clear sky of the Prince's fortunes, the sloop 
of war the Prince Charles which was return- 
ing from France with supplies of men and 
money, closely pursued by English men of 
war, ran ashore, landed crew and cargo, 
which immediately fell into the hands of the 
enemies of Prince Charlie. The party sent 
out by the Prince to recover the men and 
treasure were captured at Dunrobin Castle 
on the very day preceding the ill-starred 
slaughter of Culloden. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 79 

The eve of one of the most self-sacri- 
ficing battles of history is now recalled — 
where devotion and loyalty and honor of 
the highest degree were to be pitted against 
mercenaries and men fighting for an usurper 
in the eyes of the Land o* Heather. The 
loss of money before mentioned was a 
serious blow to the Jacobites, now much 
hampered for want of funds. The suffering 
arising from faulty administration of the 
commissariat had resulted in many of the 
men going off on their own account in search 
of food. When a night attack upon the 
government troops at Nairn under Cumber- 
land was resolved upon and messengers 
were sent out to bring these stragglers in, some 
of them declared that they would prefer to be 
shot on the spot rather than to be made to en- 
dure their hunger any longer. A man, espe- 
cially a Scottish Highlander, is on the verge of 
starvation when he comes to that situation. 
The famished condition of the men, the great 
darkness of that memorable night and the 
rough nature of the ground, so delayed the men 



80 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

that when the army was within three miles of 
Nairn it was found to be too close to daylight 
for any chance of success and the devoted 
Highlanders were marched back to Cul- 
loden Muir. 

Upon one single man, one recreant, can 
be put the blame for all that follows of 
misfortune in the history of Bonnie Prince 
Charlie. He was the man in charge of the 
Commissary Department of the Highland 
army. Had he done his plain duty the 
night attack at Nairn would have been 
successfully delivered by a well-fed army 
of never conquered men and CuUoden Muir 
would never have been fought. 

Upon the return of the devoted High- 
land army to the Muir of CuUoden — though 
unknown to them the Prince had given 
orders for bringing meat and drink for them 
to the field — many through their great 
want of meat, drink and sleep, even 
slipped off to take some refreshment at 
Inverness, CuUoden, and the neighborhood 
where they had friends and acquaintances. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 81 

The refreshment so lulled the exhausted men 
to sleep that many were surprised and 
murdered in their beds miles from the batde- 
field by the Butcher Cumberland's orders 
after the Battle of Culloden was all over. 

The exhausted condition of the High- 
land army is well indicated by this. The 
Prince went to Culloden House where his 
sole refreshment that morning was a bit of 
bread and some whisky. At that worst 
of all hours for the bonnie Prince and his 
heroic army who suffered all those miseries 
rather than be unfaithful to their country and 
rightful sovereign, word was brought that 
Cumberland was marching from Nairn. 
The Prince instantly hurried off to collect 
his men and prepare to give battle, entirely 
against the advice of the chiefs who urged 
that, in the exhausted and depleted condi- 
tion of the army, this should on no account 
be risked. But finding the Prince deter- 
mined, they reluctantly gave in, and the weak 
and emaciated army was drawn up in line 
of batde. Shordy before one o'clock the 



82 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Duke of Cumberland drew up his well- 
groomed legions about five hundred paces 
away. 

Cumberland went among his troops 
before the battle telling them to permit the 
Highlanders to mingle with them, to let 
them feel the force of the bayonet, that they 
might know with what men they had to do. 
Wolfe's regiment was sent forward on one s 
flank so that when the Highlanders charged, 
if tlhey could be made to, that the Southron 
regiment could come around behind them 
and thus, with enemies before and behind, 
the Highlanders would be enveloped. 

The great object of the battle of Cullo- 
den "was for each side to try to force the 
other to attack. The attacking side would 
be at a tremendous disadvantage, as was 
Pickett, later, at bloody Gettysburg. The 
possession of many cannon on the part of 
the English enabled them to wreak great 
destiruction on the Scottish army while 
the Scots could retaliate only by charging. 

It then became only a question of how 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 83 

long the weakened Highlanders would 
endure being slaughtered before wreaking 
hand to hand vengeance. 

Right there is where Prince Charlie 
seemingly made his fatal mistake. Even 
though the men were in rags and half 
starved they might have won the battle had 
they been ordered to charge at the opening 
of the cannonade. At Prestonpans they 
had not feared the cannon, at CuUoden they 
were held in check to be butchered by them. 

It is the Highland custom to scruge the 
bonnets before a charge so as not to lose 
them in the havoc. An eye-witness at 
Culloden says that never, perhaps, was that 
motion performed with so much emphasis as 
then when every Scot's forehead burned 
with the desire to avenge some dear friend 
and fellow-clansman who had fallen a 
victim to the murderous artillery. 

Notwithstanding that the three files of 
the front ranks of the English poured forth 
their incessant musketry fire, notwithstanding 
that the cannon — now loaded with grape 



84 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

shot — swept the field as with a hail storm, 
notwithstanding the flank fire of Wolfe's 
regiment, onward, onward, onward through 
shot and projectiles rushed the headlong, 
desperate, famished and body-sore, kilted 
men, flinging themselves into rather than 
rushing upon the ranks of the enemy! It 
was the claymore hand to hand where every 
stroke drank deep of the blood of the 
usurper's supporters! All that courage, all 
that despair, all that devotion could do was 
done. It was a moment of dreadful and 
agonizing suspense — but only a moment, 
for the whirlwind does not reap the forest 
with greater rapidity than the Highlanders 
slaughtered the English advance line. 

Passing through the first line some sur- 
vivors reached the British second line but 
not a single Highlander lived to press his 
body against the bayonets of the third line. 
Nevertheless, almost every man in the 
Scottish front rank fell before the deadly 
weapons which they had braved; and 
although what remained of the English 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 85 

army gave way, it was not until every 
bayonet was bloody and bent with the strife. 

The persevering valor of the High- 
landers is proved by the circumstance that at 
one part of the plain their bodies were found 
in layers three and four deep, having 
mounted over a prostrate friend to share in 
the same certain fate. 

The Argyle militia broke down a wall 
which enabled Hawley*s dragoons to attack 
the famished Highlanders in flank. Major 
Gillies Macbean, who stood six feet four 
inches, stationed himself at the gap and, as 
the assailants passed through, he cut them 
down by the irresistible strokes of his clay- 
more. No fewer than thirteen, including 
Lord Robert Ker, were thus slain when the 
enraged enemy closed around him in num- 
bers and at last the heroic Gillies fell, 
pierced with many bayonet thrusts, his head 
dreadfully cut by a sword and his thigh 
bone broken. 

In this charge the Macdonalds had been 
much incensed at being put on the left wing. 



86 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

They had enjoyed a position on the right 
in all battles and struggles in behalf 
of the royal family of Scotland since Ban- 
nockburn. The result was that the Mac- 
donalds refused to charge. They stood 
their ground and fired on the English. 

Upon seeing this, Keppoch exclaimed, 
** My God, have the children of my tribe 
forsaken me? ** and rushing forward into 
the ranks of the enemy he soon met his 
death. 

This action on the part of the Mac- 
donalds turned the tide of the battle for they 
were one of the very strongest clans, and 
upon whom the bonnie Prince relied much. 
In a short time the battle was over, the human 
blood standing fetlock deep in the struggling 
ranks, and the army of the Prince was routed. 
The Prince left the field when to have re- 
mained would have but added his own 
destruction to that of the multitudes of brave 
men who had already spilled their hearts* 
blood in his cause. 

Then, in contradistinction to the High- 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 87 

landers* mercy in all their battles, began an 
awful slaughter. At the Butcher Cumber- 
land's orders his soldiers went over the moor 
and bayonetted any of the Scottish wounded 
who had life enough remaining to make 
any motion. The Inverness road was made 
reeking with corpses. The soldiers went 
about in sport dabbling in the blood until 
they looked like butchers rather than so- 
called Christian soldiers. 

Cumberland in person murdered a 

young wounded Scot who, on being asked 

for whom he stood, replied, ** The Princel ** 

Seventy were carried to a high piece 

of ground and deliberately murdered. 

The wounded in houses were dragged 
out and slain. The Laird of Macleod saw 
seventy-two killed in cold blood. A hut 
containing some wounded men was set fire 
to by the English and thirty-two burned 
alive. And this in the eighteenth century 
of our Lord! 

Some wounded in the garden of Cul- 
loden House were carried out in carts to a 



88 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

park wall near by and told to prepare for 
instant death. Such as were able threw 
themselves on their knees to ask for the same 
mercy they had formerly given at the only 
tribunal where they could hope for it. While 
they were thus engaged, a platoon of mus- 
ketry put an end to the lives of nearly all. 
The soldiers were ordered to club their 
muskets and beat out the brains of such as 
showed any symptoms of life. 

This is the only battle of the arduous 
campaign in which Prince Charlie's army 
was defeated. 

On Culloden Muir there stands today 
a huge stone cairn bearing the inscription. 

••THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN 

was fought on this moor 

16th. April! 746 
The graves of the gallant Highlanders 

who fought for 
Scotland and Prince Charlie 
are marked by the names of their clans." 

CULLODEN MUIR 
" The moorland wide and waste and brown 
Heaves far and near and up and down. 
Few trenches green the desert crown. 
And these are the graves of Cullodeni 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 89 

'* Alas! what mournful thoughts they yield. 
Those scars of sorrow yet unhealed. 
On Scotland's last and saddest field — 
Oh, the desolate moor of Culloden! 

" Ah me! what carnage vain was there. 
What reckless fury, mad despair. 
On this wide moor such odds to dare — 
Oh, the wasted lives of Culloden! " 

Of all the clans which fought at Cul- 
loden none exceeded in ferocity Clan 
Macgregor. There was an old score of 
long duration for the oppressed clan to wipe 
out. Here they were against their op- 
pressors of England and able to show their 
devotion to Scotland. One fact will show 
the quality of the fighting of Clan Mac- 
gregor at that hour. Of the hundreds of 
Macgregors who entered the action but the 
merest handful lived through it. They lost 
most heavily of all the clans, for they were 
there to die killing. 

" No more we'll see such deeds again. 
Deserted is each Highland glen, 
And lonely cairns are o'er the men 
Wlio fought — and died for Charlie! '* 



90 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Red-coated soldiers were sent into the 
more accessible Highland glens to massacre 
the defenseless and many were killed in 
their beds. The ballad of Baldy Fraser 
has come down to us. 

" My name is Baldy Fraser, man, 
Tm puir and aula and pale and wan* 
I brak my shin, and tint a han* 
Upon Culloden lea, man. 

" Our Hielan* clans were bauld and stout* 
And thocht to turn their f aes about. 
But got that day a desperate rout. 
And owre the hills did flee, man. 

'* O Cumberland, what meaned ye then 
To ravage ilka Hielan* glen? 
Our crime was truth, and love to ane. 
We had nae spite at thee, man. 

" And you or yours may yet be glad 
To trust the honest Hielan* lad; 
The bonnet blue and belted plaid 
Will stand the last o* three, man.** 

Yes — ** will stand the last o* three, 
man! " The country of the Butcher Cum- 
berland was only too glad to call upon the 
bonnet blue and belted plaid to uphold their 
empire in more modern wars, and although 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 91 

Bonnie Prince Charlie did not succeed in 
putting his father on Great Britain's throne, 
the present reigning family have Stuart blood 
in their veins. 

And now began those five months of 
hardship, of exposure and of repeated hair- 
breadth escapes which have thrown a halo 
of romance over Prince Charlie's memory, 
and of undying fame over that of the de- 
voted men and women, who at the imminent 
risk of their fortunes and their lives, under- 
took loyally the desperate task of supplying 
him with food and shelter and of guiding 
him from one place of safety to another. 
The devotion of the Highlanders to their 
country and their fleeing Prince is not better 
expressed than in the old song: 

" Come boat me owre, come row me owre. 
Come boat me owre to Charlie. 
I'll gie John Ross another bawbee 
To ferry me owre to Charlie. 
We'll owre the water and owre the sea. 
And owre the water to Charlie; 
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go. 
And live and die wi* Charlie! 

** Il*8 weel I lo'e my Charlie's name. 



92 WILX) SCOTTISH CLANS 

Though some there be that abhor him; 

But O, to see auld Nick gaun hame. 

And CharUe's face before him! 

I swear by moon and stars sae bricht. 

And the sun that glances airily. 

If I had twenty thousand lives, 

I'd gie them a* for Charlie. 

*' I ance had sons, I now hae nane; 
I bred them toiling sairly; 
And I wad bear them a* again 
And lose them a* for Charlie! 
We'll owre the water and owre the sea. 
We'll owre the water to Charlie: 
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go. 
And live and die wi* Charlie! " 

Feasts of celebration for the expected 
victory at Culloden were distributed to those 
who needed the food, and the women pre- 
pared bandages for such of the wounded as 
were fortunate enough to escape the Butcher 
Cumberland. 

Donald Macleod, a native of Skye, met 
in the forest of Glenbeasdale a stranger walk- 
ing by himself who, making up to him, asked 
if he were Donald Macleod of Skye. 

Donald, instantly recognizing him not- 
withstanding his mean attire, said, ** I am 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 93 

the same man, please Your Highness, at 
your service.** 

The Prince then confided himself to 
his care in such terms that, when Donald 
was telling the story a year afterward, the 
tears were streaming along his cheeks like 
rain. 

Then ensued the dreadful weeks of 
hiding, storm, exposure, drenchings, pursuit 
on land and sea and deathless devotion of 
the people too long to fill any tome. Then 
came the meeting with Flora Macdonald 
in a hut on the west coast of one of the 
Hebrides. The Highland guide of the 
Prince, knowing Miss Macdonald, told her 
that he had brought a friend to see her. She, 
with some emotion, asked if it was the 
Prince. He answered that it was and 
instantly brought him in. It was suggested 
that Flora Macdonald should conduct the 
party to Skye, the home of her mother, and 
it was done. 

The Prince's feast of the heart, liver 
and kidneys of a sheep was rudely inter- 



94 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

rupted by the news that a party had landed 
to apprehend them. Then the Prince was 
compelled to disguise himself as Betty 
Burke, a maid-servant, and they set out 
for Skye in a row boat and were fired upon 
by militia when attempting to land after 
passing through a tempest. 

Going to Kingsburgh, Kingsburgh him- 
self aroused his wife out of bed to prepare 
supper for the friends he had brought, the 
little daughter running in to say, **0 mither, 
my faither has brought in a very odd, 
muckle, ill-shaken-up wife as ever I saw? 
I never saw the like of her and he has gone 
into the hall with her! '* 

Mrs. Macdonald, obliged to go to the 
hall for her keys, was equally struck with the 
singular appearance of the guest; nor was 
she reassured by what followed, for the 
stranger immediately arose, went forward 
and saluted Mrs. Macdonald who, feeling a 
long stiff beard, trembled to think that this 
behooved to be some distressed nobleman or 
gendeman in disguise, for she never dreamed 
it to be the Prince. 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 95 

When the poor woman learned the 
truth she burst out in despair that they would 
be surely ruined. 

" Hout, good wife,*' was the husband's 
reply, ** we will die but once; and if we are 
hanged for this, I am sure we die in a good 
cause." 

At Portree, Flora Macdonald parted 
from the Prince and they never met again. 

" Far over yon hills of the heather so green. 
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea. 
The bonnie young Flora sat sighing her lane. 
The dew on her plaid, and the tear in her e*e. 
She looked at a boat with the breezes that swung 
Away on the wave, like a bird of the main; 
And aye, as it lessened, she sighed and she sung, 
* Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again! 
Fareweel to my hero, the gallant and young! 
Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again! * 

*' The target is torn from the arms of the just. 
The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave; 
The claymore forever in darkness must rust. 
But red is the sword of the stranger and slave. 
The hoof of the horse and the foot of the proud 
Have trod o'er the plumes on the bonnet of blue. 
Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud. 
When tyranny revelled in blood of the true? 
Fareweel, my young hero, the gallant and good! 
The crown of thy fathers is torn from thy brow.'* 



% WILD SCOTTISH CLANS' 

Then followed more hairbreadth es- 
capes of which a few will suffice. Going 
up one side of a hill the Prince became 
aware that a searching party was coming 
up the other side. The only thing that 
could be done was to crouch down and 
trust to fortune. The searchers passed 
within a few feet of him. Stepping out of a 
path they were once treading they were 
amazed to see an officer and soldiers swing 
right into it behind them. It seemed as 
though every foot of the crags of Scotland was 
searched for the person of that bonnie one. 
Pursued by the care of a benign Providence, 
the Prince in rags and bare feet escaped 
all pursuers and, travelling by night and 
hiding by day, reached the coast at Borra- 
dale where he had landed and, on Septem- 
ber 19th, embarked for France and safely 
arrived there. 

His miraculous escape, while it in some 
instances seemed the result of an astonishing 
chain of incidents, was in the main due to 
the unswerving faithfulness of the High- 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 97 

landers who had lost all in his cause. Hun- 
dreds, many of whom were in the humblest 
walks of life, had been intrusted with his 
secret or had become aware of it. Thirty 
thousand pounds, one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars, had been offered in vain 
for the life of one human being, in a country 
where the sum would have purchased a 
princely estate. This loyalty of the High- 
landers is without parallel in history, con- 
sidering, too, what they had to suffer for 
the cause. 

Behold this instance of individual suffer- 
ing for the cause! The two heroes of 
Stevenson's ** Kidnapped ** were crossing 
a moor, after Culloden, when they discov- 
ered a body of English dragoons beating it 
for Scotsmen. On their bellies through the 
dust, from heather bush to heather bush 
they crawled until one of them afterward 
said, ** The aching faintness of my body, 
the labouring of my heart, the soreness of 
my hands and the smarting of my throat 
and eyes in the continual smoke of dust and 



98 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

ashes had grown to be so unbearable that I 
would gladly have given up but the fear 
of Alan Stewart lent me courage to con- 
tinue. As for Alan, he had first turned 
crimson, but as time went on the redness 
began to be mixed with patches of white; 
his breath cried and whistled as it came; 
and his voice, when he whispered to me, 
sounded like nothing human.** 

The government did everything to 
stamp out what they called ** the fires of 
rebellion,** and forbade the carrying of 
arms in the Highlands or the wearing of the 
oldest and most picturesque dress of history 
— the dress of the Highland clans. The 
result of that law was peculiar. Inured 
to centuries of the Highland dress, the High- 
landers made a sorry shift of the new. 
Some went bare, only for a hanging cloak 
or great coat, and carried their trousers on 
their back like a useless burden; some had 
made an imitation of the tartan with little 
party colored stripes patched together like 
an old wife's quilt; others, again, still wore 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 99 

the Highland kilt but, by putting a few 
stitches between the legs, transformed it 
into a pair of trousers like a Dutchman's. 
Even those makeshifts were condemned 
and punished, for the law was harshly 
applied, in vain hopes to break up the clan 
spirit; but in that northern land there were 
few to make remarks and fewer to tell tales. 

The Highland chiefs were obliged 
to flee to France like hunted deer. In 
** Kidnapped '* again we find the following 
conversation. Alan Stewart says to Bal- 
four, 

And then I have a bit things to 
attend to. Whiles, I pick up a few lads to 
serve the king of France: and that's aye a 
little money. But the heart of the matter 
is the business of my chief, Ardshiel.* 

** * I thought they called your chief 
Appin,' said Balfour. 

Ay, but Ardshiel is the captain of 
the clan,* said he. 

" * Ye see, Balfour, he that was all his 
life 80 great a man, and come of the blood 



100 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

and bearing the name of kings, is now 
brought down to live in a French town like 
a poor and private person. He that had 
four hundred claymores at his whistle, I 
have seen with these eyes of mine, buying 
butter in the market-place, and taking it 
home in a kale leaf. Now the tenants of 
Appin have to pay a rent to King George, 
but their hearts are staunch, they are true 
to their chief and the poor folk scrape up a 
second rent for Ardshiel. I'm the hand 
that carries it.' And he struck the belt 
about his body so that the guineas rang. 

" * Do they pay both? ' cried I. 
Ay, David, both,' said he. 
What! two rents? ' I repeated. * I 
call it noble,' I cried. 

** Alan went on ... * When the men 
of the clans were broken at Culloden, and 
the good cause went down, and the horses 
rode over the fedocks in the best blood of the 
north, Ardshiel had to flee like a poor deer 
upon the mountains — he and his lady and 
his bairns. A sair job we had of it before 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 101 

we got him shipped; and while he still 
lay in the heather the English rogues stripped 
him of his powers, they stripped him of his 
lands, they plucked the weapons from the 
hands of his clansmen that had borne arms 
for thirty centuries; ay, and the very clothes 
off their backs so that it*s now a sin to wear 
a tartan plaid and a man may be cast into 
gaol if he has but a kilt about his legs. One 
thing they could nae kill. That was the 
love the clansmen bore their chief. These 
guineas are the proof of it.* *' 

" Bonnie Charlie's noo awa*; 
Safely owre the friendly main; 
Mony a heart will break in twa,^ 
Should he ne'er come back again. 

** Will ye no come back again? 
Will ye no come back again? 
Better lo'ed ye canna be. 
Will ye no come back again? 

•* Ye trusted in your Hieland men; 
They trusted you, dear Charlie; 
They kent your hiding in the glen. 
Death or exile braving. 

** Will ye no come back again? 
Will ye no come back again? 



102 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Better lo'ed ye canna be, 
Will ye no come back again> 

*' English bribes were a* in vain, 
Tho' puir and puirer we maun be: 
Siller canna buy the heart 
That beats aye for thine and thee. 

" Will ye no come back again) 
Will ye no come back again? 
Better lo'ed ye canna be. 
Will ye no come back again? " 

Far across the ocean's leagues my eyes 
strain toward the rising sun until I see the 
Land of Heather. 

A gigantic human figure meets my 
raptured vision, a figure destined to grow 
more colossal with the ages. The inspired 
face is uplifted and on it I see the tender- 
ness of a woman though the face is 
that of a man. His entranced look surveys 
the muse of Caledonia hovering over him 
and his right hand grasps — a plough. 
His lips move and I hear 

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gowd, for a' that! ** 

To the last the heart of gold of Bonnie 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 103 

Prince Charlie was with Scotland and with 
those who suffered and perished in that 
cause which has filled the land with song 
and melody. Then the God of battles 
tenderly, quietly, softly withdrew him from 
earthly scenes. Wrapped in the loving 
arms of the Master of Nairn, that incom- 
parable Prince answered the kindly sum- 
mons of the Omnipotent. It was a gentle 
falling to sleep. The weary Prince placed 
his loved head upon the breast aching to 
support him. Quietly the morning sun 
stole into the chamber of dissolution, but 
at last there was another morning for Charlie, 
glorious, infinite, immortal. 

Bonnie Prince Charlie, in the Land 
o* the Leal with your Highlanders faith- 
ful unto death,. I know that you, with 
that immortal ploughman, could fittingly 
have said: 

" When death's dark stream I ferry o'er — 
A time that surely shall come — 
In heaven itself I'll ask no more 
Than just a Highland welcome.'* 

A Highland welcome! What of the 



f04 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Highlanders in these latter years? Has 
their welcome become less valuable since 
the days of the inspired, great-hearted 
ploughman? 

In the middle of the century just past 
Great Britain was suddenly confronted with 
a revolt of her native Indian trained troops. 
Rising with great alacrity they succeeded 
in surrounding Cawnpore and Lucknow 
in which cities were English women and 
children. General Havelock, the praying 
general, was far from Cawnpore when the 
Sepoy lines closed around it. Havelock*8 
Highland battalions with grim determina- 
tion fighting their way through hordes of 
the enemy and the horrors of the tropical 
rainy season, pushed to the relief of Cawn- 
pore. 

Breaking through all resistance they 
entered the city, the Sepoys fleeing before 
them until the inner compound was reached 
where the English women and children 
were. There was no shout of welcome 
from the besieged! The compound was 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 105 

strangely silent. Used to scenes of blood, 
the brave and trusty Scots entered the great 
and echo-giving building. The room where 
the women had been was afloat with human 
blood, women's hair had been torn out and 
was strewn about and on the great window 
sills were rows of infants* shoes — full of 
bleeding feet! The bodies were found 
jammed into a huge cistern. 

Cannon shot, rifle ball, saber thrust, 
disease giving swamps had not unnerved 
those men of Caledonia but then they shed 
manly tears. Raising their blood-stained 
hands they swore to ** remember Cawn- 
pore!'* 

In Lucknow, many miles away was 
the other struggling garrison with its English 
women and children. Havelock*s High- 
landers were its only hope. Between the 
kilted warriors and Lucknow were thousands 
of determined Sepoys. 

The granite battalions pressed on with 
** Remember Cawnpore! ** on their lips. 
Oh the terrible waiting of the English sur- 



106 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

vivors at Lucknowl How they listened for 
the sound of the coming of their possible 
rescuers! 

** Pipes of the misty moorlands. 

Voice of the glens and hills; 
The droning of the torrents, 

The treble of the rills! 
Not the braes of broom and heather. 

Nor the mountains dark with rain. 
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, 

Have heard your sweetest strain! 

" Dear, to the Lowland reaper. 

And plaided mountaineer. 
To the cottage and the castle 

The Scottish pipes are dear 
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch 

O'er mountain, loch and glade; 
But the sweetest of all music 

The Pipes at Lucknow played. 

** Day by day the Indian tiger 

Louder yelled, and nearer crept; 
Round and round the jungle-serpent 
Near and nearer circles swept. 

* Pray for rescue, wives and mothers. 

Pray today! * the soldier said; 

* Tomorrow, death's between us 

And the wrong and shame we dread.* 

** Oh! they listened, looked and waited. 
Till their hope became despair; 
And the sobs of low bewailing 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 107 

Filled the pauses of their prayer. 
TTien up spake a Scottish maiden, 

With her ear unto the ground; 
** Dinna ye hear it? — dinna ye hear it? 
The pipes o* Havelock sound! * 

* Hushed the wounded man his groaning. 

Hushed the wife her little ones; 
Alone they heard the drum roll 

And the roar of Sepoy guns. 
But to sounds of home and childhood 

The Highland ear was true; 
As her mother's cradle-crooning. 

The mountain pipes she knew. 

' Like the march of soundless music 

Through the vision of the seer. 
More of feeling than of hearing. 

Of the heart than of the ear. 
She knew the droning pibroch. 

She knew the Campbell's call; 
' Hark! hear ye no' Macgregor's 

The grandest o' them all! ' 

Oh! they listened, dumb and breathless. 

And they caught the sound at last; 
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee 

Rose and fell the piper's blast! 
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving 

Mingled woman's voice and man's; 
* God be praised! — the march of Havelockl 

The piping of the clans! ' 

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance. 
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife. 



108 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

Came the wild Macgregor's clan-call. 

Stinging all the air to life. 
But when the far-off dust-cloud 

To plaided legions grew, 
Full tenderly and blithesomely 

The pipes of rescue blew! 

** Round the silver domes of Lucknow, 

Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine. 
Breathed the air to Britons dearest, 

The air of ' Auld Lang Syne.' 
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums 

Rose that sweet and homelike strain 
And the tartan clove the turban. 

As the Goomtee cleaves the plain. 

" Dear to the corn-land reaper 

And plaided mountaineer. 
To the cottage and the castle 

The piper's song is dear. 
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch 

O'er mountain, glen, and glade; 
But the sweetest of all music 

The Pipes at Lucknow played! " 

Entering the city, fighting from street 
Jo street and house to house, the Highlanders 
found a thousand Sepoys, perpetrators of the 
massacre at Cawnpore, ensconced within 
one stone building only one street removed 
from the final stand of the surviving English. 
With cannon forcing a breech through the 



WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 109 

stone wall, they entered the building and 
for four mortal hours the sounds of combat 
to the death were heard within. Cries of 
** Mercy! Mercy! " arose, but the grim 
avengers answered the cries with ** Remem- 
ber Cawnpore! ** and the thrust of merciless 
steel. Voice after voice was forever silenced 
and when the surviving Highlanders emerged 
not a single Sepoy was left alive within. 
Thus did the arm of Scotia revenge Cawn- 
pore. Did Lucknow find any deterioration 
in the Highland welcome? 

On many a wall there hangs a certain 
battle picture. Horsemen are wildly charg- 
ing and each stirrup is grasped by a kilted 
soldier on foot flung along by the impetus 
of the determined rush. It is the charge of 
the Scots Grays and Gordon Highlanders 
at Waterloo. 

There for the first time those plaided 
mountaineers met the Terror of Europe and 
before that fierce charge of the ** women 
devils," as the Russians and Bonaparte 
called them, the collossal power of the 



1 10 WILD SCOTTISH CLANS 

"Great Shadow*' felL Scotland alone spelled 
his doom. 

Onward, over fallen horse and rider, 
scorning cannon shot and shell, leaping, 
yelling, those protectors and givers of freedom 
go, and over the awful carnage of Waterloo 
there comes to the ears of the doomed 
Napoleon their shout of 

"SCOTLAND FOREVER" 





The Garden Series 

By CARRO FRANCES WARREN 

When completed will comprise SIX of the most fascinating, 
and at the same time uplifting and instructive stories for 
children ever written. The titles are: 

(1) Little Betty Marigold and Her Friends. 

(2) Little Polly Primrose and Her Friends. 

(3) Little Goldie Goldenrod and Her Friends, 

(4) Little Danny Dandelion. 

(5) Little Peter Pansy. 

(6) Little Topsy Thistle. 

Of these the first three have already been issued and 
Number Four will make an eariy appearance. 

Each volume will contain a page showing all the flowers 
mentioned in the story in all the beauty of their natural 
colors. These nature studies will be of great interest 
and value to every child reader. 

The many colored illustrations and handsome binding 
will make any or all of these volumes most attractive gift 
books for the children. They will be sold at a uniform 
price of 75 cents each. 

At all Booksellers or sent postpaid hy 

The C. M. Clark Publishing Co. 
211 Tbemont Street :: Boston, Mass. 




Little Goldie Goldenrod 

By CARRO FRANCES WARREN 

The emblem of Massachusetts is the beautiful golden- 
rod, which stands like a sentinel in so many of America's lovely 
fields and woods. 

Your children should surely be taught more about the 
sweet wild flowers which bring such messages of love and joy 
to all. 

Miss Warren has given expression to some wonderful 
flower-thoughts in her valuable **Garden Series** of books 
for children. 

♦'Little Goldie Goldenrod" is a story which teaches not 
only of the flowers but also of many of the wood and field 
folk that are a part of Nature's great system, 

Billy Bullfrog, Samuel Squirrel, the Grasshopper family, 
the Bee people, Benjamin Bunny are among the acquaint- 
ances made in this book. 

Two full pages of all the flowers mentioned in the book 
are given, so that young readers can have lots of fun naming 
each one. Thus there is a splendid nature lesson taught, 
while at the same time the richest entertainment is enjoyed. 

Moreover, there are plenty of incidents throughout the 
book which provide real interest. 

A gift book of the most valuable kind for children, 

ftMAlfa] Oolond lUmtratlOBs by H. Borlstoa DoMMr 

Price, 75 Gents 

The C. M. Clark Publishing Co. 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



